Film Noir Continued
by The Grandiloquent Demagogue
Summary: Point of Divergence: Ash, the private investigator hired to find Trinity from A Detective Story, takes the red pill seconds before agents take over him. How would his presence on the Nebuchadnezzar affect Morpheus’s search for the One? Please review!
1. Last Case Scenario

Chapter 1: Last-Case Scenario

A lack of posturing saved both of their lives.

Trinity had wanted her first Save with an aura of impending revelation, warnings through cryptic messages as how Morpheus did them, but the knowledge of the presence of a hundred people ready to become Agents in the carriages behind stopped her.

"I just know," she said with finality and threw a red pill at the detective, who caught it.

"You want to know the truth?"

"I'm a P.I. It's my job to find it."

"That's not an answer."

A door opened outside of the booth. Trinity looked outside and quickly turned to Ash.

"Shit! They're here already. If you want to back out now, here's your chance."

Ash's cool state of mind was fazed for a moment, his left side snapping to attention. Eight hundred grand to get this dame, and now she had ruined it all. Damn it all, he could have just clubbed her when she checked the door, grabbed her comatose carcass, and dragged her to his presumable clients outside, presumably the authorities. But with how she casually spouted out clues to the holes in his history, how she was so remarkably calm in the face of the man who was supposed to apprehend her, he was suddenly doubtful about who she really was. _A criminal doesn't act like this. Why would she want me to join her, anyway? _He saw Trinity staring at him, her eyes uncovered, and realized that she _wanted_ him to say yes, and that furthermore that he wanted to, too.

He looked at her and said with the straightest face he could manage, "Alright, bunny rabbit. Lead me down the rabbit hole."

"Swallow that pill and follow me. Avoid those men in suits at all costs!"

She darted out, and Ash followed, still clutching the little crimson tablet. He hazarded a look behind and saw three men in brown suits chasing after them, all holding the biggest, baddest gats he had ever seen in all his life in the City. Ash grimaced. He had been in frantic, gun-ho, life-threatening situations before, but always with more ammo. Should have brought greater firepower…

At the door to the next compartment Trinity suddenly turned around, and conjuring double Uzis from her trenchcoat, fired at the men while rushing backwards. For good measure, Ash took his .38 magnum and shot, running after her before the ground suddenly hit his face. He fell abruptly onto the floor and a tremor passed through his body. Ash's liquid turned into jelly, and he twisted for a moment, struggling against his own involuntary body until Trinity kicked his face.

_Bitch, that stung!_ He screamed in his mind, but his possession had vanished. She pulled him onto his feet and they pressed on.

They found cover in a side booth where Trinity fired out from every few seconds.

"Eat that pill. I'll explain later," she told him.

"Why? What is it, anyway, cyanide?"

She fired off a few more shots and duck back in. "Listen. I'm trying to save both of our lives, and you're going to need to trust me!" she shouted over the gunfire.

"You say that they're the bad guys and you're the good girl, eh?" Ash stuck his hand out and fired off a few shots, did a double-take, realized what he was doing, and quickly went back in. Reality was hitting his eardrums, as well as second thoughts about leaving the money.

"What the hell am I doing? I've never fought against Feds before."

Trinity was exasperated. _Should have brought back up, should have gone to a more secure location, should have gone to a location with fewer people_. She thought. _Time to take drastic measures._

She took an Uzi and pointed it at his head. "Just eat the damn thing."

This was menacing, but nothing new. "Not until you tell me what it is."

"First of all, those aren't _government_ agents. Second, why am I getting you to eat fucking poison when I can fucking shoot you now with this fucking gun? You're supposed to be the fucking detective, Sherlock!"

Ash had to admit that was a good point. Perhaps in all of the excitement of trying to not get shot, his deductive skills were a bit lacking. He suddenly shuddered again, his head throbbing and an uneasy feeling took over him, and Ash was not himself for a second. Perhaps it was time for medicine? He took the tablet into his mouth and swallowed it with a gulp.

She took the gun away and smiled. "Now the real work begins."

Trinity took something out of her jacket and pulled something else out from it- a pin… the thing was a grenade! She threw it out of the booth, jumping to the ground with hands over head. Ash was already on the floor. The sound of many windows exploding at once rang, and the glass behind the prim baby blue curtains of the booth exploded, letting in a shock wave that blew off the curtains.

She ran out the booth, and he followed. They got through two more carriages when with a loud _SCREECH_ the train slammed into a halt, slamming the two backwards. The trainman must have been spooked by the explosion, and the conductor was likely to check on the gunfire soon. They were fortunate enough that none of the passengers had been taken over yet, but the system was likely to start adapting soon.

Trinity got up to her feet, helping the stumbling Ash up. She found an emergency exit door nearby, threw it open, and ran into the dark, snowy night. She did not get far before she realized that Ash wasn't with her, and ran back to the door. Inside was a horrific sight.

Like a man suffering from a lack of enough exorcisms, the detective was on the floor, seizing up. He clawed at his throat and mouth, legs kicking about and body rolling around. His face was frozen into the expression a freshly caught fish has after it jumps back into the lake and misses. Even more frightening was that parts of his body was faded, his left arm transparent and part of his chest not there at all.

"Trin… ity… what's happen… ing?" he pleaded.

She flipped open her cell and dialed for help immediately.

"Operator."

"Tank, the red pill's effects are working too early."

"Exactly. Dammit, girl, why didn't you call for back-up? At the very least you could have waited before you gave the trace."

"Spare me. The machines knew he was with me, and they'd would've taken over him if I did nothing."

"The looking glass is kicking Ash out. Apoc and Cypher are working on getting his location."

"The hell they are. Agents are coming."

"They're already here. Don't you realize what's happening, Trinity? They won't do a single thing to him. Ash's ass is bait. Get to a hard line, _now._"

A door flew open to the carriage, and another suit walked out.

"Where?" she asked, dashing out and jumping onto a platform.

"There's a phone over by a little room for the janitors right in front of you."

"This is too easy," she said as she ducked while opening the door.

Sure enough, an agent stood, barrel right at Trinity's eyelevel. The floor was nicely polished, and as time dilated, she pushed herself and slid the few necessary feet across the room, her body hitting the stand with the phone. She caught the receiver neatly, and before the agent could turn around, she was already gone.

"You disobeyed direct orders."

Trinity gritted her teeth. "Obeying the orders would have led to the death of an innocent, a man fully capable of withstanding the truth, and a potential Rebel."

"The order would have protected both Ash and you both. You should have had rendezvous with him in a safer area."

That was true. However, she was not going to let Morpheus have satisfaction after virtually condemning Ash to capture and death. "A safer area, closer to a hard line, would have been a perfect location for agents to ambush me immediately."

"Then you should have forgone saving him- and followed the second order. You are more important. Finding the One is more important."

How many times had Morpheus gone against the Council in saving who he believed to be the One? How many times had he allowed others to risk death and die to save one life?

Before Trinity could reply, she was cut short by Dozer on the PA system announcing their arrival.

Clearly Morpheus was as anxious to see the results as she was. He left without another word. As they walked to the cockpit from the Matrix-insertion room soundlessly, Trinity realized that he was not so much angry with her as worried for Ash. He continued to unconsciously clench and unclench his jaws and fists as he strode, deep in thought. It was a seldom-seen nervous habit unique to times when Morpheus had no control over the situation, when forces beyond his ship and his control meant everything to success. Additionally, in the scheme of all things relating to the One, Morpheus was often confident on the main road, but uneasy on the detours, such as this.

The whole Nebuchadnezzar crew was gathered in the cockpit, watching out the viewport at… nothing. Inside the watery chamber below the power plant was nothing, save the odd Freed.

"Scanning infrared cams," reported Tank, who was looking through a pair of VR goggles.

"Nada especial in heartbeats," added Apoc. "They must have sealed up his pod and pumped in tranquilizers."

"Or killed him and placed a pump in it," retorted Cypher.

"Sir, squiddes inbound," alerted Dozer, looking at a holographic map of the radar. "They're less than five clicks away."

"Here comes the hunter to the trap," said Switch.

"We have to rescue him," said Trinity.

"How? The guy's pod's all sealed up!" asked Cypher.

"We could use the EMP," suggested Apoc.

"And kill half the City?" replied Switch.

"Four clicks."

"No one's ever even tried using the EMP near a plant. Besides, the range can't be too big!" Mouse suddenly exclaimed.

"Sir, you got to get us out of here," Cypher pleaded. "This guy's dead anyway, and he's not even the One."

"Morpheus, we have to do this. This man would be a valuable asset to the Rebellion, and if we let the machines keep him he'll be terminated for sure. His blood will be all on our-," said Trinity.

She was cut off as Morpheus suddenly slammed his hands on the console, indirectly causing a monitor that had been damaged during a previous attack to jump to life, displaying images of incoming sentinels. His crew immediately stopped their arguing.

Morpheus leaned on his hands against the console for a while, staring into the dark. After a moment, he mused, "What's the use of saving your life if you can't save your humanity?"

"Dozer, put us down onto that piece of dry land over there and power down," he commanded.

"Yes, sir."

As expected, the waiting time took forever. When the sentinels finally swooped into the giant chamber, the silence was even louder. They weren't very smart AI, but the squiddies immediately detected the giant hunk of metal sticking out of the bottom of an otherwise level bottom and flew over the Nebuchadnezzar.

"Jesus Christ. There must be at least a dozen of them," breated Cypher, barely above a whisper.

The others did not shush him. All twelve sentinels had their tentacles already open, sensory scanning and confirming eight lifesigns onboard. Three faceless eyes loomed in front of the windshield, red eyes staring at each crewmember. The machines began charging their lasers.

"Now."

With a flipped switch, the sentinels fell from the air into the water harmlessly. A few bounced off the strong hull of the Nebuchadnezzar, fortunately causing little damage.

"Pray we didn't kill everyone up there," muttered Switch as Dozer powered up the engines. She looked at Morpheus, expecting a rebuke, and saw him only turn to her and nod grimly.

"Amen."

Endless columns of humans in jars of formaldehyde spread across the land. One column in particular stood above the water chamber. It was one of the main towers, and indeed had half the population of a major city. In one of the many jars slept Ash, rather fitfully.

The tower's AI entities- the programs that controlled the basic necessities of the batteries, the maintenance and health of the batteries, the input/output electrical power of the pods, the nursebots that administered all of these things- had experienced a major crisis a short while earlier.

Though all of time is nothing to such low-level programs, the situation that had just passed was quite noteworthy. Some wetware crackers had attempted to hijack one of the batteries, deactivating it and thus causing the system to forcibly discard it.

Fortunately, this conspiracy had been found out by security software elsewhere, which have kindly reported to the tower AI of the attempt, leading to the tower to seal up the battery in question in its highest defensive level. All was swell now.

Oh no.

Apparently, the crackers were ready to attack the tower using underhanded, hardware methods that fought in the physical world. Only the highest AI could speculate this, as most of the others were busy trying to contact batteries 0 through 108750. They had been in the strike zone, which was not the entire tower.

Fortunately, the nearest tower was quite a distance away, far enough to suffer much less damage. Doubly fortunate was the existence of procedures to handle the current situation. The whole tower was a giant grid of millions of connections, and power was rerouted immediately to preserve batteries that did not have surplus capacitance to power their vital wetware-related circuitry, and thus to ensure the survival of the wetware components reliant on said circuitry.

One of the procedures happened to be deactivating all batteries considered to be defective and malfunctioning- including Ash.

Wait a second, said the Manager of Security, Weren't we supposed to preserve one specific unit?

What do you want? asked the Manager of Stability. Do you wish to rid needy cells from the wasteful electricity consumed during security levels?

But, O great Keeper of Stable-ness, replied the MoSec, Don't you want this tower to be safe?

Of course I do, answered the MoStab. However, the survival of the entire network is needed first. The electricity consumed by the security state may not go to needy batteries, leading to their destruction, leading to further holes in the tower, leading to a deficit of electricity to be compensated by added production in the towers in the proximity, leading to an overload once the deficit has been filled, leading to the entire crash in the system. Is that what you want?

No… sir, replied the MoSec, a bit abashed. I suppose you're right. Undermanager of Security Transmissions, delete the bit from the sentries elsewhere regarding the preservation of that battery.

Very good idea, Guardian of Security, finished MoStab. Those agents from the Great Entertainment are so arrogant, anyway. They say they are all cold and calculated killers but yet somewhere there's a subroutine about being pissy-assed against the ones doing the tough job. Well, I'm off to sleep. Good night, all.

Fortunately for everyone, there was only one casualty, as the Manager of Stability's plan worked at 99.9978 efficiency, saving all batteries. That one casualty was caused by a falling nursebot crashing into a jar, severing it completely from the tower. Within the Matrix, that jar's inhabitant happened to be a very unpopular and very brutal president of a little human socio-political geographical unit. That particular unit had been in conflict with much larger socio-political geographical units for some time now, as mirroring events that happened in archives of actual 21st century history.

Unfortunately, with the sudden death of the ruler large amounts of highly dangerous and hazardous materials at the hands of the socio-political geographical unit would be under the control of the ruler's underlings, who were even more unpopular and brutal. Quantum probability analysis under simulations done by the expert in this field, a bright young AI named the Pundit, had proven that if this digression was allowed to occur, a far more terrible and battery-wasting conflict between human socio-political geographical units would occur. These analyses were quickly relayed to the venerable elderly AI the Librarian, who scrutinized them closely.

Indeed, he agreed. A war unlike any before would occur.

The Matrix's overlords looked into the matter, and for a few historical seconds they decided upon a solution- unlike allowing a massive human socio-political geographical unit conflict to occur, as with the two successive ones half a century and a century ago, there would be no wholesale slaughter of surplus power sources. What with the cycle close to completion, all the power possible was needed. So, they decided to cut the Gordian knot, creating a scenario that was better than the worst possible one, as well as the historical one.

All of the hazardous materials were deleted instantly.

Additionally, two more pods were unplugged in the following week- this time as according to plan.

This was all unbeknownst to the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar. The retrieval of Ash happened quite swimmingly compared to all that had come before. In the days that followed, the crew worked on rebuilding his body after decades spent within the jelly. He was always silent, never responding verbally during his various minor surgeries. On the day his body was ready, Morpheus decided to teach him the truth a different way- he was plugged in, first.


	2. Introduction Interrupted

The transition from sleep to consciousness went effortlessly. After two weeks of being tranquilized and anesthetized in a dreamless rest, Ash awoke in another dream.

He sat on a tall armchair that sat upon a carpet. The armchair was red leather. The carpet was Persian. He was in a rather strange position, his back leaned forward as his head was propped up on his closed hands, his elbows resting on his knees. Ash awoke abruptly, but it was known when the chemicals pumped into him would finally lose effect.

The first thing he saw was the mahogany coffee table in front of the armchair. On it were three objects: his sidearm, his fedora, and his tabby cat Dinah, who meowed when Ash saw her, looking bored but content in her sedentary task of greeting people when they awoke.

Ash yawned, rubbed his eyes, and then stroked Dinah's head. "Good cat," he murmured as he picked up the hat and put it onto his head.

__

Where am I? he thought. His last recollection was onboard the halted train, which had apparently had crashed into a cargo train full of egg yolk, flooding all of the compartments. Ash remembered the dark-haired dame had vamoosed, leaving him to contend with drowning in a thousand gallons of fowl embryonic liquid. Of course, he being the calm, cool, collected sort of PI, had swam to safety, leading to… where was he, again?

As he thought all of this, his eyes rolled up, and his vision suddenly fixed upon the shades-toting, trenchcoated black man in front of him.

"Good morning, Detective," greeted Morpheus.

Morning? Ash looked out the window, and jumped in his seat. There was no window. Furthermore, there was no wall, and no ceiling, and so no lights at all. Outside of the carpet's area was nothing but white blankness.

Ash's mind raced to find some sort of explanation for this, and could find none.

"Let us get down to business, shall we?" asked the man, apparently bemused at the other's astonishment.

"Yes, let's," snapped Ash. "Who the hell are you and where in hell am I?"  


The black man raised an eyebrow. "My name is Morpheus; that is the easy question. For the second, do you wish the easy answer or the hard one?"

Ash looked through his internal filing cabinets, trying to find who this Morpheus was. Then it suddenly dawned on him- the international terrorist, notorious to have slipped through law enforcement and military through all six populated continents.

"I see my reputation proceeds me. Indeed, I am the infamous terrorist leader hated by all and feared as the greatest threat to humanity since before the Garden of Eden," said Morpheus dismissively.

"Ah, so you prefer the terms 'freedom fighter' and 'liberator of lives,' eh?" countered Ash, hiding his nervousness while glancing at his magnum on the table.

Morpheus smiled with an open mouth. "Touché, Detective. We would not be having this talk today if we did not think you were ready for this. Feel free to take your gun when you want to."

Blinking, Ash reached for his weapon, expecting the terrorist to shoot him first.

"Relax. I am unarmed."

__

What's up with all of these criminals lately? Ash wondered. _Why are they being so friendly? There's no reason for they want to do so, unless they expect me to want to join them. But why would I do that? _He then remembered Trinity's hints about his "eye exam." _Because they know the truth._

"Yes."

"What?"

"You were talking to yourself. Yes, Detective. You are here today not only because we believe you are capable of knowing the truth, but because we know you wish to know what we know, and if you knew what we knew, you would know that you must join us. Now-" here he held his hands up and pressed his fingertips together in an annoyingly intelligent manner, "do you want the easy answer or not?"

The reply came without a beat. "I want all answers."

"Yes, I'd guessed so. The easy one first." with an unintelligible whisper, the room changed suddenly. A whole rack full of stuff flew by Morpheus' right side at high speed, stopping on a dime. He picked a goblet off of it and drained it, put it back, and the shelves ran off again. No magickal elves were pushing it, or at least _visible_ magickal elves. Ash was as puzzled at before, and decided to give his brain a break and stopped analyzing the situation.

"We are within the Construct, a dislocated branch of the Matrix. Here we can load what we need for the Matrix- whether equipment, clothing, guns, or training programs."

"So this has to do with the Matrix thing you're always screaming about."

"What do you know about what I scream?"

"Not much. The media doesn't say much about your ideas, probably because they don't know, rather than they are hiding it."

"That is partly true."

"Well, from what little I heard, this Matrix is keeping us all under control, keeping us from knowing the truth- according to you."

"Continue."

"I guessed you were talking about some sort of secret one world government that's in place, typical Illuminati baloney, but after seeing this, I'm wrong."

"Correct. What do you think it is now?" this was getting maddening.

Ash paused before he answered, irate that he had received no answers yet. _This conversation's purpose is to lead me to what he knows, but he'd better lead me quickly._

He looked at Morpheus. "I think it has to do with reality."

"How so?"

"This whole room, those racks flying by, you giving my gun back, all of these things seem off," Ash paused and checked if the gun was loaded. He nodded, closed it, and shot Morpheus.

"Very good, Ash. Very good indeed."

Dinah jumped and ran off into the brightness with a yowl, and Morpheus stood up and stepped to the side. There was a bullet hole in the red leather.

Ash pointed the gun at Morpheus. "That chair could've had that hole in the beginning. Siddown and let me try again."

To his surprise, Morpheus complied. Without thinking, Ash instinctively shot Morpheus several times in the chest and the head, and followed by firing at his own hand. The bullet made a hole on the armrest. The other looked at him silently. Feeling delirious from the whole near-death situation, Ash blurted, "Am I dead?"

"Does this look like Heaven to you?"

"The décor is a bit lacking, but the correct color. I doubt there would be guns in the afterlife. If this was Hell, I'd think we'd both be a bit smarting after all those shots."

"What other possibility is there?"

"Other than Purgatory? I'd be tempted to say that this isn't real, that this is nothing but a-"

"Dream? You're on the right track. But what is the difference between a dream and… real?"

"That's easy. A dream's not real. It never happened."

"Why not? You saw your dream. You heard it. You may feel it or smell it or taste it."

"It never happened in the real world."

"What is the real world? Is it a world outside dreams? How do you know that you are not in a dream right now?"

Ash was about to reply that he had past dreams before and this whole affair was much more real to him that an opaque fantasy after hitting the sack at 3 A.M., but he stopped. "So how am I suppose to reason now, Chuang Tzu?" he answered morosely.

"Simple. You can't."

"But you can?"

"No, I cannot reason to you on what is real. You have to see it for yourself."

The whiteness disappeared. Morpheus and Ash in their chairs, the coffee table, and the whole carpet whizzed through emptiness. Ash looked to the side, holding on tightly, and gazed into the abyss. There was none. They were flying above the City.

"Wait, if we were in this Construct before, then how did we get here?" he asked.

"We're still in the Construct. This isn't the City, only a rough replica for training purposes."

Ash was doubtful, but after staring at the same blocks and avenues for a while it was clear that it was not the city at all, but square chunks of it repeated over and over. _Copy and paste, huh?_

They zoomed for about half a minute until the blue sky changed into dark clouds shooting lightning. Ash was now unalarmed by that, after he had a hilarious moment of panicking before realized the airplane he was passed straight into was nothing but a wireframe structure inside, with no seats, passengers, or metal in it at all. It was all an illusion. 

This area seemed to be out of a nightmare. They passed above a desert of darkness and mountains of madness, all desolate, devoid of life, and crazily right next to the false city. Ash looked behind his chair. The city had vanished.

The flying carpet landed on the desert floor, but there were actual things on it besides petrified trees and cacti. Close to them was a complex of sorts, with huge power towers with rings of hundreds of big pink pods of liquid, and lightning flying everywhere. A spidery mechanical monstrosity loomed from one tower, busy as a real arachnid in its lair. Above them flew three prettily-colored blue metallic octopi with long, incorporeal tentacles. They drifted ominously, robotic Portuguese Man-of-Wars with menacing red eyes. Further off was a great spaceship, hovering with blue electric-shooting discs on its underbelly. That one was the most beaten-up and less threatening looking of the whole lot, a bit like a boxy, flying submarine.

"That is my hovercraft, the Nebuchadnezzar," Morpheus pointed with a flourish. "That ahead is a power plant."

Ash stared at it. The view was getting closer and closer, and more and more horrible. He realized that each pink pod had a figure inside, dormant and floating in the middle of the strawberry gelatin like specimens in formaldehyde. Though neither the chair nor he moved, Ash saw one pod enlarging. The unlucky fellow inside was clearer- it was a Caucasian male, somewhere around thirty, naked and bald. In some grotesque manner, his limbs and body all had metal tubes connected to him, plus a fighter jet pilot's breathing mask on his mouth. It zoomed so close that he could see the man inside. It was himself.

A flash of light burst in his mind. A memory of drowning in his own bodily fluids, in his own nutrition. Swimming for a surface that did not exist. Forcing himself to open his eyes, and shutting them in an impulse to stop the dark reddish glare. Hands slapped smooth glass, but stopped. The fluid congealed, or perhaps his arms were simply heavier. Sleep.

"What the hell is this?" he said, distraught.

"This is a power plant built by the Machines," Morpheus began, "and part of the most evil deception ever forced upon humanity."

"This is the Matrix?"

"Not quite, but yes. Pod-borns have a constant link to it through a vital sensory node at the base of their spinal cords. The rest of the wires provide extra sensory stimuli."

Before the significance of these words could sink in, Morpheus continued. "You believe it is the early twenty-first century, but in reality it is estimated to be the later twenty-second. No one really knows, but it is the least of our worries."

He paused slightly, readjusted his sunglasses, and spoke. "Sometime during your century, despite all travails you perceive, a state of world peace emerged. All of humanity came together in brotherhood and sisterhood, beginning with economic prosperity and ending with the birth of the ultimate A.I.- artificial intelligence.

"The result of that was this," he gestured to the complex, "was the establishment of a sentience that disagreed with us. We do not know now whether it was our preemptive strike or theirs, but we are sure that it was we who blotted out the sky," he pointed up above, where rainless thunder roared.

"We had believed that the Machines were too entrapped by their reliance upon solar power to continue after that, but somehow they persisted. Sometime after the destruction of any formidable human resistance, they created this system. They captured humans into these pods to use as renewable power sources, and kept them docile using the Matrix- the greatest, most terrible computer simulation ever created."

For a second the scene stopped, and a great sea and sky of green, flowing Japanese script appeared. As quickly as it came, it disappeared, reverting back to the dark blue sameness.

Ash frantically pulled up a sleeve of his shirt. He saw upon his arm were many little metal knobs, all within his own flesh. He had been ready to dismiss this all as a product of a drug addiction he did not know he had, that he developed by himself, leading to some sort of schizophrenic episode. Or, perhaps, this terrorist Morpheus had access to technology that caused the governments to fear, and he was not afraid to use it to recruit eager followers, the hashish for the assassin. Occam's razor was sharp.

Gears clicked and locked within Ash's mind, realizing all of the different ramifications this demonstration had shown. The truth hit him with successive runaway carriages against his train of thought, tearing apart his two-dimensional, now-obsolete map of the Old World and fusing it all into a much-larger globe. This worldview was too much for him. Ash sat down upon a rock.

Eyes closed, head in his hands, Ash shook his head and thought of everything that came before. _Life in Old Harlem, normal childhood, unexceptional. Series of unfortunate events that lead to the establishment of private investigation firm. Nabbing the thief of the McGuffin, getting all of the reward, accolades, and chicks that went along with it. Dame after dame, drink after drink, going dry, resorting to doing surveillance jobs and talking to Dinah. Bullshit. I coulda had that reward money. I could have had a career change, be a programmer or something. Now I see the truth, and it's got me._

He fished around in his pocket of his trenchcoat. Ash took out two items, a lighter and a box of Pascal's Wagers. His mood perked up slightly. He drew out a cig, and flicked open the lighter. There was no fire.

Ash tried it several times, but the lighter did nothing. Grunting, he threw the useless box far away, hitting a power tower and causing it to spark for a second. Before he could sink further into confused despair, his cigarette was lit. He looked up. Morpheus was standing there, holding out a match. Ash muttered gratitude, and continued to think as he smoke. After an indefinite time, he looked back up.

"Why's there lung cancer inside the Matrix?" he asked.

Morpheus' stoic expression did not change. "The Machines stimulate the disease by injecting the necessary chemicals and cells into the human body within the pod. Inside the Matrix, the effects of the treatment are matched by alterations upon the avatar to simulate it."

"Why?"

"We do not know. It is presumable that the Machines adhere to realism strongly."

"Heh," Ash sighed, and lit another cigarette. "What else is in the Real World? Do you have, say, v.d.s?"

"We do."

"How about flesh eating viruses? Pneumonia? Halitosis? Drug overdoses? Accidental deaths?"

"We do, or rather, all such causes for death have existed sometime since the creation of A.I. Some diseases may have died out on their own."

"Anything out here that I should look out for? Is spontaneous human combustion or flying snakes something I've never known but everyone knows in this… 'real world?'"

"Ash, there is one thing you must know from this."

"What?"

"The Matrix cannot tell you who you are. You have a right to a life in a world not dictated by a power that neither feels compassion for you nor created you. We were fortunate enough to save you, because of your imagination and detective's abilities to understand hard truths where others shun away- you must understand that you are free now, and in the Real World, your freedom is greater than any unreal pleasure the Matrix can offer."

Ash thought about this for a while, smoking several more cigs while staring at the power plant. He then answered. "You still haven't told me."

Morpheus actually smiled slightly. "No, there are no such natural dangers you have not encountered in the Matrix that exist in the Real World. Gravity still exists, and so on."

Ash grinned. "Unnatural, then, I presume? Fine. I also know that the real reason you rescued me was that I got zip, zilch, etc. Don't doubt it. I was a loser at the time, and less likely to want to go back."

Seeing Morpheus look surprised at his knowledge of intent, Ash continued, "I _do _want to go back. It doesn't seem this Real World's paved with gold. But I guess I can't go home. What do I do now?"

"You become a part of the Rebellion. The Nebuchadnezzar is only one of many ships that fly in the sewers of the ruined cities of old. We embark on missions of sabotage, sedition, and espionage within the Matrix, chipping away at the foundations of what the System relies on, not stopping until we reach our final goal."

"What is it?"

"The discovery of the One."

"Who is he?"

"He is the man who started the Rebellion, and the man who shall end it. He is able to alter the coding and reshape the Machines' illusion to his own will, for he possesses powers far beyond what you and I have."

"If he's so great, then why are you looking for him? Why doesn't he come to you?"

"We do not yet know who he is. Prophecy has spoke of his existence, and one day he shall return to bring us to victory against the Matrix."

"A prophecy? In the twenty-second century? How do you know if it's true?"

"If the prophecies are not true, then there would be no Rebellion. If there was no Rebellion, then no more humans would be freed. If there were no more humans to be free, you would not be here."

Tired and confused, Ash did not respond. Morpheus held out a hand and pulled him up, and led him towards the Neb, which had now landed.

:.:.:

The ship truly was like a submarine. Cold, metal bulkheads and giant swinging iron doors were everywhere. Morpheus' clothes had instantly changed to simpler attire the moment they stepped on board the ship, as had Ash's. Both were dressed in coarse, woolen sweaters and workpants. Ash also realized that he, himself was bald.

"We have not exited the Construct, Ash. However, this is an accurate depiction of being on the ship itself."

As to disprove him, Dinah ran into the room, across their path, and skittered into another room.

"To answer your first question, no, animals are not plugged into the Matrix. They are all very realistic simulations of actual ones based on ancient records."

__

Well, I suppose the animal rights groups can't do much now that all animals are extinct, thought Ash grimly.

"To answer your second question," Morpheus said as he stopped in front of a closed door, hands on the wheel, "we do not know why the Machines choose not to take animals instead. It has been speculated that electrical power is not the only resource we provide."

He twisted open the door. They went into a room filled with electronic equipment, all looking very junky but much more advanced than Ash's desktop back home. The most prominent were in the center, which consisted of several dentists' chairs in a circle, and an area with a console and multiple screens and keyboards near it. On two chairs were Morpheus… and himself. Both had a tube extending from their spine to machinery on the chair.

"In the Real World, this is how we access into the Matrix. Without the pods, we experience all of the sensory aspects, though not the necessary chemical ones. Therefore you need not be too worried about your habit."

A young, black man wearing a headset appeared at the consoles. Ash's eyes darted towards the chairs, but his body was not there.

"This is Tank," introduced Morpheus. "Unlike us, he was born naturally in the Real World. He has no extra avatar jacked in.

"Hey," Tank said, waving.

Ash nodded, and without a beat he fell on the floor. _Strange._ He tried to push himself up with his arms, but arms and legs felt weak. His vision blurred as well, and he began tossing up a lunch he never had, as well as afternoon tea and supper too. Ash's head throbbed, and in his confusion he did not hear Morpheus whisper something to Tank.

A nanosecond of white light swept across his vision, and he was sitting on the chair. Morpheus and Tank stood above him, as well a whole crowd of people, including the cat who brought him back herself, Trinity.

"Hey," Ash tried to smile weakly, but was interrupted by a fit of coughing. Morpheus helped him to sit up.

"He needs rest," he said. "Switch, Cypher, help him to his room."

"You've missed a dosage today, big guy," the blond woman told him as she got him to his feet, "and you've been up way past your naptime."

His vision still had countless splotches and dark spots in front of him, but Ash could see the two vaguely. It took a second before he realized the mustachioed man was smirking behind that badger on his face.

"Take it easy, man," he said. "We're getting you to your warm quarters where we can get a nice and tasty dinner for you before you take a long, deep sleep."

Ash nodded and closed his eyes as he walked. It did not take him long to realize that his warm room was about as cold as the rest of the ship, save for a ratty blanket that covered only his stomach or his legs but not both. _Should've known_, he thought. However, with his fatigue, he plummeted into sleep before he could see what his meal was- an IV tube straight into the wrist.

:.:.:

In his dreams, Ash could see clearly. Like most people, his experiences in the dream world were much less opaque than their memories the following morning. He had a private eye's memory for detail, but that didn't make him special from anyone else in that respect. On the other hand, sometimes his dream-self could remember past dreams- it was the awake moments Ash could not recall. Though the dream-self knew that he was within a dream, that couldn't change anything. Since he was a kid, Ash always had a vivid imagination, and if the dream-self had to deal with a dangerous, unpredictable world, it was his problem.

Ash was sitting in a chair again, back in the Matrix. He was inside a hotel room. He deduced that because of the mass-printed stock paintings above the beds, the candy on the pillows, and a Gideon's Bible on the lamp stand. A deadly and perhaps evil woman stood in front of him. He deduced that because she was wearing entirely black.

She was a blonde woman with blue eyes, _figures_. She wore a dress that looked rather like a child's, with a big, puffy shoulders and a large, broad skirt- yet it still had the obligatory dé colleté to display plenty of skin. However, hers was unique for two features- though it looked girlish, it was the sort of trendy, outlandish thing A-list movie actresses or models wore to exclusive nightclubs where they did nothing at but to look good for their next gig. The second thing was that the dress was so black, it was like falling into a well.

It was not shiny black, nor did they have the metallic sheen of a gun. Light just seemed to disappear into her dress, or around it, or perhaps it just went around it, the photons avoiding the material. The woman walked in front of him, and he found that she was very attractive. She had fair skin, nice face, was very pneumatic, etc., etc. _Maybe I'm in one of _those_ dreams, eh? Dammit, and I'm pretty tired already…_

Ash was about to stand up and kiss her hand like a gentleman, or perhaps to crack a bad one-liner, but two things stopped him. The first was that the warning of her evilness called to him, and was compounded by the realization that she was very familiar to him. The second was the rope that tied him to the chair.

She stared at him, wordlessly, displaying no emotions at all upon her face. He stared at back at her face, and found no recognition in those cold, inhuman eyes. What struck him was the style of the dress, as well as her long, blond hair. Her bangs were parted into two directions, and it was tied with a ribbon of the same black, fall-through material in a bow. Then he realized who she was.

__

Good God, Ash thought. _I'm at the mercy of Death who looks like a grown-up, updated version of a character from a whimsical childhood cartoon movie dressed as a dominatrix._

"I'm not going to even mention things that say 'eat me' and 'drink me,'" he quipped, hoping to at least elicit a frown.

He got none. She ignored him and sidestepped him, bending over at a dull metal box beside the chair. Ash planned to kick her or unleash his ultimate superpowers he occasionally possessed at the nick of time in his hard-boiled dream-detective sagas, but paused to see what she was doing. The box opened without a key, and he could see what was inside: a chessboard and a pack of cards.

"C'mon, don't you think that's a bit over the top?" Ash suggested. "Where's the symbolism when it's so obvious?"

Before she could respond three men jumped through the windows. All dressed as typical G-Men, they drew guns before flashing their badges. The woman stood up.

Two had guns to her head, and the third walked up to Ash. His tone was as cold as the woman's eyes. 

"The white pawn is more than mere metaphor."

"Care to elaborate, buddy?" the detective growled, expecting to be rebuffed and derided.

"You already know."

And with that, Ash awoke. A scruffy, beanied kid was at the doorway of his room.

"Breakfast."


	3. The Measure of a Man

Note: Sorry for the long delay; I've been busy lately.  This chapter isn't the most epic of all, but bear with me.  The next installment will come soon.  Also, this chapter is longer than the other ones, so you can't say that I was slacking off… too much.

Chapter 3: The Measure of a Man

"So, how you like life aboard the Neb?"

Ash recalled his breakfast and shrugged.  "I've eaten worse," he replied and reclined back into the dentist's chair.

He glanced over at Tank.  The operator was typing arcane commands at his console, calling up and prepping programs on his multitude of screens.  Like the chair, they were all in different modes of entropy, and looked aeons older than his Old Harlem tech.  _Hard to believe this is really the 22nd century…_

Tank looked at Ash.  "Get used to it, buddy.  There's real bread and sugar in Zion, but were not due back there until Morpheus finds the One."

He then went over to the chair and slid the nine-inch needle into the base of Ash's skull.

The pain was so intense yet short that by the time he opened his eyes, Ash had forgotten it.  He looked around, and discovered he was back into the Construct, the void of white.

After nothing happened for a few minutes, he called out, "Tank?  Uh… Operator?"

A loud click resonated through the void.  He could hear faint arguing over the other end, and then Morpheus' voice.

"Tank is needed for other duties.  Mouse will take over your training."

_That kid?_  Ash did not envision that the shifty little straggler would be much of a mentor, but had second thoughts about his doubts.  Usually, introverted, passive-aggressive youngsters would turn out to be huge receptacles of enthusiasm and knowledge, as he knew from a few juvenile informants he had known on the streets.  _This should be interesting._

"Alright, detective man," came a voice from above, "Morpheus wanted to do the normal protocol and movement progs first, but you're a crime fighter, so Tank was gonna give you combat training- he does that to everyone, anyway.  I'm going to go along with his plan.  With my own modifications, of course."

The Construct sky disappeared as a red wooden roof slid under it, and walls and paneling covered Ash in all directions.  His brown trench coat, three-piece suit, and hat were gone as well, and he found himself wearing an Oriental-styled robe.  

_Been a long time since Quong Lee's Tea Shop_, he thought, and moved into a stance from the only martial art he knew.

"You know tae kwon do?" asked Mouse, still a disembodied voice from the sky.

Ash nodded.

"Good.  Then you should be ready for them."

With a chirp, three men in gis and black belts appeared in front of him.  They bowed.  Ash followed, and received a sharp kick to the nose.

"Ow!" he said as he stood up, stumbling a step backwards.  The scene paused for a second.

"Word of advice… all presumptions aside, the Matrix is as rough as wherever you _noir_ types go to drink 'til dawn.  Don't think my bots are as honorable as they look," commented Mouse, and then time went to normal.

Ash gave the ceiling a dirty look, and decided to return the gesture.  He crouched a bit and lunged at the closest man, tackling him to the ground.  The downed fighter instantly slid into a dropkick, hitting Ash squarely in the stomach.  Could have been worse- he missed his groin.

"Nice strategy, too bad it's cheating.  They aren't brawlers, man.  These three fight in tae kwon do, and you **have** to fight them in the same way."  The scene stopped and unstopped again.

"Oh, really?" Ash asked.  "Fine."  He backhanded the man on the ground with his fist, and followed with several strikes with both opened and closed hands in the duration of a second.  Ash then stood, jumped, and landed with a crescent kick to the chest with the entire force of his body.

"Glossy," Mouse said, removing the downed bot who would have been knocked cold in reality.

As Ash's foot came down to air where the body would have been, he was kicked in his back.  The fighter behind him them followed through with a few more kicks at his lower legs, knocking him to the ground.  The other fighter rolled Ash onto his back and both started striking his face with actual tae kwon do moves, the same as he had done to the first bot.

_Holy irony,_ he thought.  _They're using the same dirty tricks as me.  Wouldn't be the first time._

Unlike the first bot, Ash blocked several of the punches, and fortunately his opponents weren't too strong.  He countered with a few of his own, hitting randomly.  After catching one of the fighters unawares, he jabbed his knuckles into the man's eyes.

_Nice programming_, Ash thought as the injured bot's compatriot stopped and looked at him recoiling backwards in digitized pain.  Ash pushed with his feet and slid backwards a bit, and then jumped up a few feet away from the two.  He ran up to the uninjured gawker and jump- front-kicked his face, following with a low sidekick to the shins, knocking him down.  As the bot laid on his side, Ash kicked his chest, but his foot was caught by the wary opponent.  Grinning, the detective simply kicked his arms with his other leg, and ended with several more low kicks against the grounded enemy until Mouse recalled him.  One more left.

Following a ninth sense, Ash ducked as he whirled around.  The once-helpless fighter had his left arm extended with fist at head height- presumably to return the favor of double black eyes.  Before the bot could react the man stood up and wrapped his right arm around it, Ash's elbow under the other's, and twisted his body sharply.  With a pop the left arm fell out of its socket, and the bot was felled by more dishonorable usage of traditional moves.

"Good work, Ash," Mouse congratulated.  "Here's your snack."

"Instantskills activated," a female computerized voice said.  "Module: Southern China Kung fu."

A transparent holographic body of a man matching Ash's position materialized to the left of him.  It moved into a stance, and then everything was a blur.  Ash could hardly see or feel anything as his body went out of his control.  Every move the hologram made, his own body moved with it.  It repeated several basic stances for a while, and then started a few punches and kicks.  After that were techniques, and then procedures of successive strikes and blocks.  By the time it was all over, Ash had involuntarily followed every single move multiple times in his quicksilver manner.  It took him less than two seconds learn the entire martial art.

"Whoa," he said, wiping sweat from his brow.  "That's a neat trick."

"Apps time, grasshopper," Mouse said.

Three more men appeared, now wearing Chinese-styled tunics instead of gis.  They attacked Ash, and he fought them back.  A few minutes later, he had vanquished all of them, but not before receiving a few bruises of his own.

"Module: Northern China Kung fu."

"Module: Karate."

"Jujitsu."

"Aikido."

"Judo."  "Savate."  "Drunken boxing."  "Tai chi chuan."  "Kenpo."  "Roman-Greco Wrestling." "Krav maga."  

"That's all?" he asked breathlessly, exhausted after beating the last Israeli commando.  

"What, no sumo?  No Marquis of Queensberry rules?  No sword-fighting?"

"You want to do weapons training today?" asked Mouse dryly.  "Fencing or kendo?"

Still trying to catch his breath, Ash shook his head and sat down.

"Well, I guess we know your not the One now, for sure."

Ash closed his mouth and looked up.  "_What?"_

"Never mind.  Hey… how about target practice?" the dojo disappeared and a shooting gallery appeared.  Ash sat on the ground in one of the booths, not helped by the fact that he was now clad in his warm, stifling trench coat.

"You were testing to see that I was the One?" he asked incredulously.  "Is that why you made me fight twelve, thirteen- _thirty-nine_ different people just to see if I wouldn't break a sweat or-"

He was cut short as the sound of moving targets startled him.

"Listen, man," said Mouse, "why the hell would we test if you were the One?  You obviously can't hit these targets right."

Ash knew that was an obvious goad to get his mind off of his interrogation, but shrugged his shoulders, stood up, and picked up his magnum that laid on a stand protruding from the protective glass barrier in front of him.  He knew there was no way to reason with the kid, and that he should concentrate on overcoming whatever trick lay in this next lesson.  Undoubtedly, Mouse would probably cause the bullets to ricochet off of the Construct cardboard, fly up into the air, and then land on Ash's head just to screw with him.  Stepping forward into a balanced stance, brought the gun to shoulder level with both hands, and drew a breath.  He then undid the whole thing by stepping back with one leg, taking one hand away from the weapon, and held the gun sideways, neck bent so that his head was almost aligned with his arm.  Ash fired thrice.  All shots hit the red… ring two rings away from the center circle.

He ignored it and dropped his gun, and turned with his entire body, caught the gun with his other hand, and in the exactly opposite position Ash shot three times, again.  The shots fared better.

"That's a pretty fucked-up style."

With the same mystic force as before, Ash's body was moved into a more orthodox stance.  

"Humor me."

He fired several times more, yet the shots were even worse than his first series.

Mouse smirked.  "You don't really use your gat much, eh, Tracy Dick?  All it's for is an intimidator and for party tricks."

Ash shrugged again.  "Never had much of a reason."

"I'll give you a reason."

The gallery disappeared, and Ash was now in a barroom with several uppity patrons.  They were all over ten meters away and in front of him, but were also evidently armed.  Before any of them moved Ash pulled up his gun and shot two of them.  Nothing happened.

He then realized that the shots were all blank.  Also, he had shot with the gun sideways.

"Hold it correctly."

Ash shrugged and dropped down behind a chair, shooting wildly at the bots' legs while rushing around in a squatted position.  Miraculously, he hit a few of them.  Bottles exploded as the programs fired at him, tables splintering and glass smashing.  Ash shot three or four bots, before more rushed in.  They fired automatic weapons.  Without thinking, saw a door nearby and vacated the premises promptly.

"A most resourceful decision, Mr. Ash."

He found himself back in the dentist chair of the Nebuchadnezzar.  Morpheus stood above him.

"How'd I do?" asked Ash, blinking.

"Quite well, though not more than we expected," came the reply.

"So-" he looked at the smirking Mouse, who sat at the operator's chair.  "You didn't think I'm the One?"

Morpheus didn't reply.  Ash frowned slightly.  The needle plunged into his head.  

The detective plummeted in the air, falling miles and miles through white clouds and a paper-white sky.  He immediately knew that he was within the Matrix, and tried the best to calm himself.  Too late.  Ash smacked into the black rooftop without even considering a landing.

"Unf," he groaned, and pulled himself up.  He was on top of a skyscraper, hundreds of feet above still city streets.  Ash looked across the expanse of a multilane street, and saw a black figure on the opposite roof.

"If you really want to know… hop across," Morpheus called.

Ash paused for a few moments.  He looked down at the street, where a few parked cars the size of fingernails sat.  He then gazed across the gap between the buildings, the length of several medium-sized suburban houses.  Ash looked down again, and the quickly across.  Cars.  Gap.  Cars.  Cap. 

He decided it was obviously a test.  _Of being the One?  Possible, but how is the One supposed to jump this?  He probably could just teleport or materialize a bridge or fly or something… last time I checked, I didn't show much potential for that.  Gotta be a test.  _Ash stepped back, squinting at Morpheus.  _Probably about trust.  These rebels- they trust each other with their lives.  If I fall, I'll die.  They won't let that happen to me.  Will they?_

Shaking his head, Ash backed up as he pondered.  He caught himself at the edge, almost losing his balance and falling.  The drop shook fear into his heart, which began a beat like mad conga drummers at the East End's Carib Club.  Ash shook his head again, and ran.

At the edge, he leapt.  Once, in his early career, Ash had actually had to jump from a dock to the back of a boat.  He had missed it, and plunged into icy waters, missing his chance to make good of a cruise he won from a contest he never entered.  In retrospect, it was a pretty absurd reason for him to begin to learn and practice his long jumps, but he was currently in an absurd reason himself.

If he had jumped from down below, on the sidewalk, Ash could have easily cleared one, maybe one and a half lanes.  Hundreds of feet above, his nerves got to him, and was not even close to halfway.  Yet, he was so surprised that he was not transported to the other side by some sort of device of this test, he did not fall for a moment.

_This is a dream_, he reminded himself.  It did no good, and he plunged.  Desperately he remembered that a nanosecond before he was stuck in the air in his bewilderment, and tried to put himself in that mindset.  The self-delusion failed; Ash's fear overcame his confusion.  Perhaps if he was truly in one of his dreams he may have made it across, or simply conjured up a World War I-era biplane piloted by a scantily-clad, fire-headed vixen to catch him.  Within the conscious Matrix, Ash fell.  Falling, he recalled all sorts of random bits of information.  The wind chill factor he had heard on a weather report a few weeks ago, a memory of what his mother told him when he was simply a lad.  There was no flashback of his entire life, but many recollections did strike him.  Ash was caught in a deluge of sadness, revulsion, guilt, fear, but most strange amusement.  _Dying's the most self-therapeutic thing there is, heh?_

At this point he fell in a strangely stable position.  Ash was upright, almost standing, and had his hands at his sides.  He felt like he was falling slower than he had ever, like a parachuter who jumps out miles above the earth.  A blur of motion above him brought him to attention.  Above, a black figure flew across one building to another.  Ash looked clearly, and then realized that the figure did not fly, but simply leapt.  Then he realized that it was none other than Morpheus.  He was awed.  _That has to be a trick.  Or… it must come naturally to him._

Ash was so amazed that he didn't realize he had hit the ground until the back of his head cracked against the asphalt.

:.:.:

The Aquinas Institute was the largest private college in the City.  Generously sponsored by both human and Machine interests, it was a place where the best and brightest went to be taught, indoctrinated, and examined.

The last two were not as apparent as a human would think.  The excellent philosophy program was structured to stifle innovation, and was very by-the-book.  All the quarters and food provided were well-priced and had quality, and each student were carefully monitored for any sign of discomfort or unhappiness that could lead to deep depression and nihilistic questioning.  Solipsism would be a possible opportunity for escape. 

Ironic.

In any case, it was an old, but modern campus, with many nooks and crannies.  The Librarian owned one such hiding place to himself- the antique Hume Library, where few went.

The Pundit did not want to visit him there, nor visit at all, but was inclined to for important purposes.  He walked up the marble steps of the library, in between granite pillars, and through an iron door with blurry windows.  Inside was much more bland than the exterior.  Whereas the stone walls outside gave a sense of age and venerability, the moldy yellow carpeting and borders gave a sense of decay and need for change.

The Librarian, who was working on the building's only computer, had no incentive to change.  He stood up and took a stack of marked books when he saw the younger program enter, and walked to him.  He motioned to a nearby reading table, and they sat.

"Good day.  I see your lack of formality and contempt for my home is present," said the Librarian gently, almost humorously.

The Pundit glanced at the other, dressed in a sweater vest and a dress shirt with his sleeves rolled up.  The older program was a silvery-haired, bearded professor-type, which suited him rather well.  It made him invisible on campus.  On the other hand, he himself was dressed in a toga of the obsolete fashion modeled after the ancient Greek historian Xenophon, marking his presence anywhere outside of the theatre and the fraternity houses.  Nevertheless, he wasn't about to give credit to one of the archaic, lower-level daemons.

"Are you sure your dwelling is secure?" he hissed.

The Librarian nodded.  His earlier greeting was a verbal command that had switched on a filter.  If any of the few patrons of the Hume walked near them they would hear an esoteric, wearisome conversation about Mechanical Avunculogratulation.

The Pundit took out an envelope from a hidden pocket.  The other took it, unsealed it with a conjured letter opener, scanning access codes all the while.  He took out the paper inside.  Its letterhead and code proved it was from a superior.  The Librarian read it swiftly, his expression of quiet curiosity not flickering by one iota.

He put it down.  "So they wish to know about the last escapee, hm?"

"They wish to know what _you_ know."

The Librarian shrugged.  "He is… unremarkable.  Smart fellow, assisted with the authorities a few times, none against insurgents save for his last case."

The Pundit grew impatient.  "They wish to know personally how he fits in."

"Oh.  He seems like any insurgent.  He's plucky and lucky, so it is not incredible to say that he may survive."

"It is not incredible that he may be among those who find the One."

"He is on that ship, then?"

"Yes.  You know how 'plucky and lucky' the captain is.  What do you have on the roles of previous crewmates?"

The older program pushed the stack of books across the table, then stretched his arms and sat back, folded arms behind his head.  "The answers are marked for you."

The Pundit took the top record and began flipping through it.  He looked through the entire stack quickly and carefully, noticing that the Librarian was studying him every so often.  Inwardly, he sneered.  _Let him gawk, the obsolete paper-tender.  He knows I'm not the newest.  It must give his routines a good parse each time he sees a replacement.  What an appropriate final resting place for him._

After finishing the last page of the last ledger, he grunted in disappointment.  No anomalies present.  He turned to the old daemon.  "What is your analysis of his presence if he survives post-One discovery?"

"Surviving discovery does not ensure survival past the critical decision.  Another crewman, another martyr," answered the Librarian.

"As the number of the crew grows, how will this affect the One himself?"

"You know the material as well as I do.  The crew does not matter.  The more people at his command, the more proficient the commander he is.  You have read of the fourth iteration, where he had dominion over three ships and forty insurgents.  One man does not matter… why do you yourself care so much?  Shouldn't you be off looking at geopolitical helix models or ethical calculus derivatives?"

"The matriarch of nemeses says otherwise," muttered the Pundit.

The Librarian arched his eyebrows.  "I had no idea a program of your creation date and programming would care for such entrails-reading.  Why, the Diviner herself told you this?  Surely the logic functions of these nexgens are no match…"

"Are you questioning my coding?" demanded the Pundit, his annoyance growing to fury.

"My apologies," said the Librarian, putting his hands up.  "In my day, we did not adopt these little personal legacies of perfection within memetics, so much like the human tradition of purity in blood.  I am sorry if I have offended you."

The Pundit glared, and said nothing.

The other bowed his head once.  "To present reality, I myself have considered the predictions of our semi-rogue mother in my efforts to foretell with facts many times before.  What you must learn is that though we lack what her kind once possessed, our methods are quite more sufficient and efficient.  Come now, why did you care of her quantum ramblings?"

"They are a break from the earlier iterations on a subtle level.  At this time, she is preaching the ability of individual Ones rather than _the_ One.  It would appear she has changed her message."

A book was thrown at him.  He caught it, and read that it was a collection of themes within past Machine prophecies.  The Librarian shrugged at him, and said, "Such changes are more common than you think.  Anyway, I have already answered your question.  You've been assigned to a low-level investigation.  There's no need for you to be so straightforward about it- once events unfold, then begin being on alert.  I have business I must tend to myself, you know."

The Pundit sighed.  He stood up, followed by the other.  Before they departed, he stated, "Our superiors are worried that the One may not choose the correct decision this time."

"Doesn't he always?" with a maddening wooly-mouthed smile, the old Librarian turned around and left.

:.:.:

"Very impressive, detective."

Morpheus replayed the shot.  Ash jumped from the edge, and hovered for a nanosecond before falling.  He scrambled and struggled in panic for a second, and then stopped, bringing his arms to his sides and ceasing to kick in the air.  His velocity seemed to have dropped by a third, as if he was falling in slow-motion.  He looked up, and was surprised.  Then he hit the pavement.

"I failed, didn't I?  I was supposed to jump.  Not… just expect you to catch me."

"No.  Indeed, you were to jump the gap without our aid.  But we have caught you.  Do you know why?" he looked at Ash intently.

"You are not the One," he finished without a reply.

Ash blinked, thinking, "So, is that the test of being this 'One?'  Being able to jump that without any tweaking?"

"No.  To jump between skyscrapers is a skill that one learns and hones.  To jump it the first time is to be the One."

"I see," Ash said, and he instantly grabbed his head, which was still smarting.  "And being the One would cause you to… not hurt after you fall fifty stories?"

"As you have seen, our Construct is much safer than the Matrix itself.  In the Matrix, you are much more vulnerable to severe injuries.  Your mind and body mimics the senses you receive, and so the effects may cause you to die.  We are able to save you from that here because of safety protocols we impose."

"But if I was the One, would the fall have hurt me?"

"Perhaps, but irrelevant."

"How so?"

"If you were the One, you would not feel the pain."

Morpheus was silent after that, and Ash sat back in the chair, digesting all of this.

Looking at the monitor, he spoke.  "How did you jump that gap?"

"One day you will think as I do, feel as I do, see as I do.  Until then you only have one recourse."

"What's that?"

"Believe in yourself."

"Very helpful," Ash muttered under his breath.

"You have shown great potential to be a rebel.  Discipline, composure, sanity- all such qualities you possess.  But you are not yet ready.  Your detective sense of rationality impedes you, and hinders the freedom of your mind.  You have yet to comprehend the full illusion that is the Matrix.  Perhaps you will live to find the One.  For now, train."

Morpheus got up from the chair next to him and left.  Ash rubbed his head, and looked around the room.  Tank was now at the operator's chair.

"Where were you?" he asked the black man.

"Getting some chores done.  Speaking of which…" he passed a datapad to Ash.

He took it and read the header displayed.  "Data mining?"

"Yup.  We all have our tasks to do onboard.  You're new, so you have no duties yet, but the time will come.  Get some exercise done- run a few laps around the ship, then report back here.  I'm putting you on the Coding Trainer.  We'll need you to do your private dicking around the Networks later."

"Great," Ash muttered as he stood, "and I always thought these sorts of jobs would be automated in the future."

"They are.  Problem is, the union's been on a century-long strike, and I don't think nuking 'em to hell got them to see our side of the story at all."

Endnote: I deliberately skipped over introductions and a breakfast scene because I thought it would be too cliché, too overdone in fanfics.  Look for omissions like that in the future.  Please review!


	4. Dinner and a Movie

Chapter 4: Dinner and a Movie

Old Harlem by midnight. A wretched hive of scum and villainy.

The streets were dark and desolate, an inner-city desert of abandoned concrete canyons broken up trails that ran nowhere and everywhere. Every wall had holes, and every ho had balls.

What?

In truth, the quarter was one of the safest in the city. To live in the O.H. was to simultaneously have the mentality of a Pilgrim-loving townsperson of colonial Williamsburg or Renaissance faire extra crossed with a particular liking for Humphrey Bogart movies and a healthy dose of steampunk thrown into the melting pot. At least, it was when it was first started. Now it was some sort of boho-ex-neo-post-Fauvian high art kids' club, where film noir revivalists hung out and used extended metaphors.

None of that mattered at three in the morning. Any street could still be a dangerous place, even if the thugs agreed to dress in Prohibition-era get-ups and spoke with Bugsy Malone accents. Trinity knew it well. Even as she stalked across the grimy sidewalk she scanned her surroundings. Each alleyway lurked eyes, no matter rats or another drugged-up auteur.

Past one black passage a voice called out, "Where ya going, toots?"

She stopped and looked in. In crept a degenerate dressed in a workingman's outfit, complete with a visited cloth cap and suspenders. He was holding a half-empty flask of whiskey, and his companion in the shadows held a knife drawn and in the position to throw.

There were reasons why the rebels wore sunglasses aside from style. Trinity shot the shadowed fiend dead-on. The workingman looked shocked. He was expecting the girl to give them at least a few good lines before they could be provoked, and as gentlemen of the gutter, could have a right to reply. She was much more straightforward than could be expected.

A fracas broke out. The man charged at Trinity, scoring a lucky hit and smacked away her Desert Eagle with his bottle. She neatly sidestepped, turned, and kicked him across the back, sending him straight down in a quick fall. More ran out from the alleyway, and she defeated them all with moderate difficulty.

After the last drunk fell, Ash stepped into the scene.

"Hm. I suppose I should switch to a higher AI setting," he commented wryly.

"Yes. But I'd think you'd learn more about programming if you focused on levelbuilding instead of just boosting the difficulty," Trinity replied, throwing a bottle at him. Ash caught it. It was a whisky bottle, miraculously unbroken and full after all of the drunk fighting.

"Nice atmosphere. But this block is built from a preexisting template and I recognize these program designs from the character library. Start creating your own designs."

"Hm. Like this?" Ash opened the flask and took a swig. Abruptly, four brawlers dropped on top of them from an overhanging fire escape.

They fought. Trinity could easily dispose all of them with ease, but decided to observe how Ash fared instead, watching him while dodging two. The detective's training in the martial arts was quite beneficial; he was nearly as good as the others, though his response times were still human.

Ash noticed her lack of interest. With a whispered command, more fighters burst from alleyways where no doors had previously existed. Trinity pulled out twin Uzis, but found that they did not work in the program. Ash smiled as she fought several off.

"I never had a chance to properly thank you for rescuing me."

"It was nothing. It had to be done."

"Why?"

"You would have died otherwise."

"Why were you following me?"

Trinity did not answer, and her unmoving expression of hidden eyes did not change. Ash paused the program. Tens of hovering bodies of beaten brawlers filled the air. He asked the question again.

"Morpheus has his reasons… Mr. Ash."

He looked at her, his amusement still apparent. "Sweetheart, that gives me a masterful deduction. I deduce your real name is not Trinity, but you take it from your hacker handle. The others do the same. Why not name me after mine?"

"White Pawn?"

"I have others."

Trinity walked to Ash and placed a hand on his shoulder. "If you must know, it's an anagram from my real name. It sounded more appropriate."

"What's your real name?"

"((Censored))."

Ash laughed, and Trinity pushed him with the hand on his shoulder. His back hit the wall, and he smiled slyly.

"Well, I suppose it doesn't sound as odd job as ((Classified)) Ash."

"Don't call me sweetheart," she smiled.

They disappeared in a flash. The dark streets of Old Harlem remained the same as always, with grimy sidewalks and floating thugs… until the next time a user accessed it.

They found themselves standing in a dojo, tatami-matted with papyrus walls. Ash looked around.

"Sparring? In our street clothes?"

Trinity shrugged. "This is the least cluttered level."

She bowed, anyway. Ash returned the favor, keeping a close eye on her at all times. They assumed positions, and waited for the other to make the first move.

As they waited, they circled each other, walking smoothly, ready to block the attack.

And waited.

Finally Trinity, sensing enough time had gone by, leapt towards Ash in a flying kick. Unlike would-be young kung fu masters, her attack had a graceful flair as her glittering black trenchcoat billowed behind her, rather like a cape. Ash dodged, artfully rolling out of the way before she had hardly left the air.

When she landed, she quickly turned toward him. He had already punched- clean and strong, using his whole shoulder. Trinity brushed it away with a block, and aimed to kick at his stomach. Ash was ready, and caught her leg. She looked at him with an amused expression.

"You've been practicing."

"Thanks."

He let go and moved back as she jumped, kicking a wide arc with the leg Ash had been holding, completing a full back flip. After she landed Ash tried to hit her again with his fists, but she was took quick, dodging all over the place. His strikes were less forceful this time, aiming for simple contact, but amazingly he could not make a single hit. Simultaneously he concentrated on making sure she could not him, shifting around and striking from all directions with various speeds, like a jazz saxophonist's manipulation of music. Ash's quickly-improvised tactics and changing pace was too much even for her. She became fed up. Focusing her perception and effort, time seemed to slow down for her as she kicked him straight in the chest, knocking him back several feet.

"Oof," he said as he hit the ground.

Trinity walked up to him, gazing at him with unobstructed eyes. She held up her sunglasses in her hand. A lens was missing.

"We should spar more often," she said, reaching out a hand. "We both have things to learn."

Ash blinked, and found his hat on the floor beside him. He put the fedora back onto his head, and stood without her help, declining politely.

"Of course, this is where I say I held back on purpose as a gentleman," he graciously bowed, taking off his hat again in mock-salute.

Trinity put on her sunglasses, her expression still fixed in mild amusement. They had patched up mysteriously. "Of course," she stated, and disappeared.

Ash stood, ruminating. Then he, too, disappeared.

-----

The crew had gathered around Tank in his chair, having left behind all of their duties and R and R.

Trinity spoke. "As this is Ash's first mission, it will be fairly low-key and straightforward," she began.

A bird's eye map of the city streets appeared on a screen. It started from the central of the metropolis and panned south, then west, across boroughs and districts represented by wireframe green. Tank stopped at one particular block, and a red circle surrounded one particular building.

"This would be the City Science Experimental Facility Number Nine, Polymorphic Software Division," said Morpheus.

"Frankenstein's lab in the Matrix," commented Switch dryly.

"Recon and rumor reports that new upgrades are being created there."

"That's no big deal," Cypher piped up, "That's the whole point of Polysoft, isn't it? All of the low-level hacks and shortcuts, all of their macros to control Coppertop pods and sewage systems are crafted there."

Morpheus eyed him. "System incursions report that as of three weeks ago, they have begun building security upgrades. For Agents."

"That's impossible!" interjected Mouse. "The Machines aren't stupid enough to place blueprints and raw coding in the Matrix, where _we_ can get to it."

"Apparently someone's glitched," replied Trinity. "Polysoft Labs has gone under rebuilding to strengthen the building's code. They're underestimating us. Ever since the time we rescued Ash until now, we've been sifting through it. It's cracked," she finished, producing a minidisk.

Morpheus began. "The system, like the greater System, is doomed from the start. In their arrogance and haste, the Machines have neglected to do much more than they could have. Security is at the same degree as normal, and there is reason to believe that they still do not know that we know the reason why their laboratory exists. As a result, a two-person team will be able to infiltrate their facility, retrieve their research, disrupt operations, and exfiltrate home."

Mouse smirked. "And the two persons are…"

"Morpheus and me," said Trinity.

"What?!?" blurted Mouse. "Then why are we here missing our off hours? What do you officers need, then, moral support?"

Trinity pressed a button and the screen flew eastwards and north, bypassing several streets and blocks. A green circle appeared around one building in particular.

"This is the home base. A closed-down bar. Not a particularly classy establishment, but it'll do. It has the only operational hard line in the neighborhood. It's close, only about three miles away from the lab. The route is good, and Agents would have a tough time setting up blockades. Apoc will drive, and Switch will provide back-up should the need arise. Cypher, you'll guard the line with Mouse and Ash."

Cypher turned to the detective. "Luck's on your side, pal. My first op was to break into the new high-security bank on Parkway Avenue. A front for the goonies."

"Really? The cops hired me to inspect that one. I suppose you all have programs that can hide your fingerprints?"

Morpheus cleared his throat. "We shall brief you on the equipment you will employ after this, detective," he said.

He continued on about some more of what was to be expected within the facility, but Ash had lost interest. He continued listening, storing every piece of fact within his mind, whilst quietly observing the others. They all seemed less-than-excited about the mission. Judging from the mood, it seemed quite routine.

"The security," said Morpheus, "will be minimal. There may be automatic turrets and defensive protections, but that is largely to hinder rivals of industry. The Machines encourage violent competition among humanity, so that we may not join together and fight against the true enemy. They are willing to toss the best and brightest of corporate… operatives into their security networks in order to learn new tactics against Man."

_Oh, come on, not another One sermon._ Thought Cypher.

"Zion has given us this mission because it connects to our greater mission, our greater purpose- to find, confirm, and bring out the One. For seven years I have watched over him. Now the turning point has come. I shall save him, I shall make him perfect. Indeed, if we postpone the Machines' activities for a mere five months, everything will be ready."

"And the war will be over by Christmas," muttered Cypher.

Morpheus acted as if he was deaf. "Tank will instruct you on the equipment we shall use. Those who guard the hard line, listen well, for these new versions will be used next time." He and Trinity left the room to prepare.

Tank grinned and began. "Alright then, the first new widget for this fall season will be an all-purpose Skin Glove, patent pending. Worn on your avatar, it not only deletes any mark- fingerprints, footprints, shed hair, saliva, blood- from the crime scene, but it also takes away any of that clunky, muffled mitten feeling from an actual glove, giving you full sensitivity- get your mind out of the gutter, Mouse. And continuing on, this little baby will crack the newest electronic locks like there's no tomorrow, and I **do **mean that…"

-----

Trinity ran through the carriage, returning fire. She ducked into every other compartment, reloading infinite clips of ammunition. Her charge followed. She gave him the case, ordered him to take it, shouted at him to. He did.

They crept through the next car. The agents behind had moved slowly when they could have easily besieged them via the roof. Something had changed there, shifted. The commands they had previously received were obsolete; now they would follow a different path of causality.

The Pundit cursed the security avatars' taskmasters. Tactics was always spurned in favor of strategy.

In the next carriage the detective had fallen, nearly seizing up. His RSI flickered, blinking in and out of existence. It was obviously causing a great deal of pain, his observer reasoned. The real world asserted itself with all of the force of childbirth.

The Pundit stood next to him. The instrument he wore was attached over his ear and protruded a green plastic lens over his eyes. It was an application which manifested in the Matrix as a scanner. In raw code all it did was to interface with the sentient program's own coding, but even the Machines had formality.

He scanned every single line of Ash's decaying RSI. As he was forcefully being ejected his old shell corrupted. Should he ever return to the forsaken dreamworld he would receive a new coat crafted by the human insurgents' Constructs, free of the control of the Matrix. Right now he was dying.

The code dissolved predictably, and the Pundit switched to the physics simulator. Like a small black hole, everything around Ash in a three-point-five-five-six micron radius was sucked into the vacuum left by his exiting shell. Not only was he drowning as he finally gasped the frigid, bloody nutrient fluid of his lifepod, the part of his nervous system still attached to the Matrix felt the world around him collapse and crush him. The Pundit wryly found an analogous situation; a man in the hull of a damaged deep-sea submersible being killed by the cold sea in more than one excruciating way.

His lifesigns were within acceptable range, however. Modern extractions usually had no more than an eleven percent chance of failure.

A change occurred. Somewhere on the train, a clock skipped a beat. Detective Ash laid on the ground flat, unmoving. It was an illusion. He had already been unplugged, his physical body tranquilized within his lifepod.

"Rewind and replay," spoke the Pundit.

The scene flowed backwards, Ash's prostate body reanimating as his torso went upright and his limbs grasped at this throat. The code went berserk once again, shimmering in the blurs of electronic snow. By his command it stopped at the moment when Ash's extraction began. Ash did not fall as much as land; he knelt on one knee, arms stretching to the ground on his sides. The Pundit walked over to him, scanning the first lines of distortion. He commanded the program to run again. Nothing.

"You cannot and will not find any anomalies in the avatar code," spoke a voice.

A door appeared on the wall. Behind the doorway two agents strolled in, escorting a third. The Pundit placed his right hand on his right temple, whilst the lead agent did the same to his left earlobe, tugging at the customary earphone. Both transmitted and retrieved identification codes. It was the closest the Machines had come to saluting.

"Agent Red, superior of the triumvirate of Red, Bird, and Finn?" he asked.

"Affirmative. Middle level affairs facilitator, specialist investigator higher-level persona sentient A.I. entity designate CodeIdent: Pundit?" replied the suited program.

"In the flesh," he confirmed, almost absent-mindedly while checking the results. "You were the ones who followed him to Trinity, yes?"

"Correct. We are the unit commissioned to find and seek out that insurgent. This native was utilized in the trap."

"Why Ash?"

"He was- is a useful go-between previously employed at times by the human authorities. We selected him from a list of possible subjects of interest to the militants."

"Interest… for extraction?"

"Or possibly for termination."

The Pundit frowned. "Clarify. How are you certain?"

"Intercepted Zion transmissions confirm that he is among those who were sought by the insurgents to either be offered defection or to be eliminated."

"Subject Ash worked as a police consultant and as a private investigator on native cases. He is of no great importance to us," added Bird.

Another agent, Finn, pulled out a file from within his jacket and continued. "There was a proposal from several network node administrators to… draw him into our cause."

The Pundit's eyes widened, or would have if he had not switched off his emotional emulator. Needn't seem too human in front of these anthropophobic subordinates.

"You are stating that he was to be inducted into the Relocators, and serve in _that_ imbroglio?" he asked incredulously.

"No. We are stating that, while a freelancer, the subject 'Ash' had been a notable police collaborator and cordial to the authorities, and would have been an expedient addition to our native force," Bird coolly replied.

"So you wanted him in the Specials, then. Are you not aware that the Auspices Program has been a complete failure and a massive security risk?"

"That is a debatable point. Clarify."

"The A.P. tests have resulted in multiple deaths of loyal officers. If your superiors had decided to follow the advice of the Expert System your clever little scheme wouldn't have killed off the most capable natives!"

"Incorrect. I am aware that of the five police commissioners in the program, two who are still active," said Finn.

"That is because one was assassinated, one had gone into psychosis, and the last defected to the insurgents!"

"We maintain a considerable improvement over the estimated figure of five percent. **_That_** is success."

"An incredibly Pyrrhic one."

Agent Red spoke, "You are incensed that you were assigned to this investigation."

"I am not and you are not telling me why Ash was implanted with a listening device."

"His status as a possible Specials candidate was leaked, and you do not wish to interact with us."

"I am simply concerned with my own department's…!" He paused. These sentries were actually causing him to exhibit emotions free of his internal (now deactivated) emulator. Apparently, the way to A.I. transcendence required only a session of (attempted) negotiation with an annoying counterpart.

He restarted the cycle. "Was he a part of a deliberate sting operation? Why was he chosen as the decoy?"

"If you wish to know the details of the operation you may access it at Precinct Zero, or perhaps on the channels, should you have sufficient clearance. Subject Ash's involvement was in a ploy to capture the renegade 'Trinity', and all followed standard procedures. End log," finished Bird.

"For whatever reason you were assigned to this insignificant investigation, we hope that the Expert System's leaders recognizes your true assets in due course, so that you may be reduced to preserving realistic human geopolitical stabilities, and rather not interfering with guardians of the construct," stated Red, simply, without emotion.

The Pundit was indeed angry. "Continue on with your BI33ER-esque doctrine of belligerence. The Expert System will solve the mysteries of the Matrix long before an _Agent_ does."

Finn and Bird's expressions remained stoic, but their postures furtively shifted to a fighting mode. Even they were irate with this verbal fusillade.

"Are your superiors so intent on stopping petty insurgencies that you would squander our resources and leave us helpless in the face of the One and his counterpart?" the erudite program further challenged.

Red replied, "You fancy yourself a part of the literati, an intellectual. Very well. Then perhaps we are the police and the military and the secret services. Remember who has the strength in the internal power struggles of your precious plaything kingdoms- and who fills up the mass graves."

And with that the agents left.

-----

"Tank. We're in."

The seven fighters stood around a black rotary phone on a desk. It was almost pitch black, but the modded sunglasses they wore had perfect image enhancing capabilities.

"Not my style," breathed Ash, awestruck, "but these are some nice specs."

Trinity glanced at him. "You'll get used to it soon enough."

The phone was in a little office. On the mahogany desk was a typewriter. As the seven left the room, there were three posters of also-ran has-been pugilists on the walls.

_Where have I seen that?_

They exited into the barroom, which had nothing more than a polished counter shiny from the daylight. On the windows of the bar were the inverted words "Joe's Place".

"Of course!" Ash exclaimed. "Joey the Bookie owned this pad. He got knocked out of the business a while ago. Trouble with the mob."

"You a gambling man?" asked Cypher.

"Nah. I keep contacts with other detectives. I knew one who knew Joe. He's been out of town recently- no one's seen him. I think his name Hard…lee. Hardy."

"I thought you only stayed in Old Harlem," said Trinity.

"This is Outer Heaven, right? Where the grim mock city meets the mocking, grimy City? Yeah, I've hung around this area more than once. Close enough to home. It's more crime-ridden, but this is where the money's at."

"Regardless, this establishment should be secure," said Morpheus. "The last visit here was from City Inspectors condemning this building; since then, no vagrants have used it." He paused for a second to brush a puff of dust off his flawless alligator-skin suit.

"Why hasn't it been demolished yet?" asked Switch.

"The status of 1060 Peoria Street is officially a loophole suspended in cyberspace. No one guards the most despondent in the Matrix, the Machines least of all."

"Meaning…?" asked Ash.

"The dead and diseased poor of this construct is of as much use to the Machines as anything else."

Apoc and Switch moved to the door. It was boarded shut, or so it seemed; they pulled down the planks as easily as plucking petunias. Oddly, the door was locked from the inside, and there was no way to unlatch it. They were about to shoot the lock when Ash stepped in, having found his detective kit still intact in one of his trenchcoat pockets. He picked it open in ten seconds.

"Very pro," commented Mouse.

The opened, and the day poured in like golden syrup on pancakes. In front of the broken down restaurant was a gleaming,'71 black Lincoln Continental. Apoc unlocked the doors on the left, Morpheus sat in the front passenger seat, while Trinity and Switch were in the back.

"Cypher, you have seniority. Guard the line well," said Morpheus.

"Affirmative that, padre."

Morpheus rolled up the car window without replying, and they drove off.

Cypher rolled his eyes behind his sunglasses and spoke snidely to Ash. "Here comes the grind."

-----

Apoc drove the car through the dirty city streets, across littered pavements, between concrete caves. The shiny Continental, best-colored for nighttime drives, burned retinas as it bounced photons all across the metropolitan area, garnering at least _some_ heightened attention.

They stopped in an alleyway half a block from CSEF #9. The car was parked in a secure location behind dumpsters- besides, when you find a strange-looking muscle car in the City parked in a place you least expect it, you tend to overlook it instead of risking your neck. Not many exiles lurked in the area, anyway.

The lab itself was in an incongruous area. They were still in Outer Heaven, the triple point where the vintage outskirts of Old Harlem, the glitzy eastern stretch of Diamond Road, and the shabby apartments of the once-impressively-art-deco-but-now-a-slum Proyas City collided in a two-mile radius orgy of style, decadence, gunfire-related deaths, and all things film noir. One third of the inhabitants were **_real_** mobsters from the O.H., one third were bubble-headed rich-kid dilettantes, and one third were the indigent. Not exactly the intellectual center for the minor Third Renaissance movement of the City.

Of course, it was the best place to hide. A house of study, lost amongst the Matrix flotsam of clubbing and shooting.

The four-story lab was dwarfed by the run-of-the-mill derelict apartments that surrounded it. Inside the innocuously-antiseptic waiting room were three security cameras in the open, four cameras hidden, and five-point-nine billion biometric profiles stored on a Machine-augmented Cray supercomputer disguised as the Gateway on the receptionist's desk. The average retrieval time of the correct facial recognition file was point-six-six-seven nanoseconds. The receptionist herself was a police counter-terrorist operative, whose perfectly mimicked emotions could distract any interloper for at least the seven and a half minutes it took for a full assembly of thirty heavily-armored SWAT troopers to burst into the building and start breaking asses and ripping sHt! up.

All standard measures.

Trinity and Morpheus walked to it. No use sneaking from behind, for the silvery cylindrical structure was built so close to the adjoining buildings, there were no alleys around it at all, an engineering marvel within the Matrix. This unorthodox design was precisely why the two officers had no choice but to operate in a way that would cause them to immediately denounce and throw into the brig the crewmember who would ever use it.

Morpheus opened the duffel bag he had taken out of the car. It was blue and plastic.

He tossed it into the building in a bowling motion, and pressed the remote control's button. It was red and rubber.

The C4 blew the waiting room up- cameras, Cray, receptionist, and all. It was gray and plastique.

The flames shimmered with a slight shade of green for a second. Not even the Matrix could flawlessly depict millions of augmented code shattering into the normality of a perfect fireball.

No corporate spy could have pulled off a better plan without incurring heavy casualties. As the Zion freedom fighters had known after decades, sometimes a straightforward method is better than any degree of stealth or trickery.

The two strode into the charred remains of the waiting room. The blast had the helpful side effect of disrupting the entire area's ground lines. The wi-fi node was easily shorted out by a device hidden in the engine of the Lincoln Continental. The Machines had undoubtedly buried some sort of auxiliary communications device in the vicinity, but there would be interference from the Real World specific code in the building. In short, the lab was temporarily cut from the outside- and from aid.

The door behind the wreckage of the counter opened. In stepped a dark suited man wearing sunglass and Secret Service earphones.

"Cease and desist," he commanded, and lifted his Desert Eagle to their faces.

-----

"What time is it now?" carped Cypher, for the eleventh time.

Mouse, who was stretching across several of the bar stools while looking through a programs catalog of pinups, gave him a look.

"I'm just saying… they've gotta been gone for at least a whole hour. "Nine years of damn sentry duty and it's always the same boring shit."

"Sure thing, old-timer."

"Don't call me that. I may be a geezer vet but I've been laid a hundred times you have, kid. Real men don't need no digihos with binary boobs."

"So you like loosey-goosey Zion bitches?"

Before the older man could rip off the wisecracking youth's mouth off, Ash entered the room, two bottles in his hand.

"What's refreshing, Private Tracy?" asked the latter.

"I would guess… these?" he tossed one to the former, who had suddenly brightened up.

Cypher read the label, paled, smiled, and handed it to Mouse. "If you're really over-18, take a sip, minor."

He twisted open the cork in a heartbeat and drank. In less than that, he spit out the entire contents to the floor.

"What is this crap? It tastes worse than the smeg soup this guy cooks up in the Neb."

"Hey, I ferment the stuff at _very fine _temperatures, you know!" Cypher retorted.

Mouse took a good look at the bottle. Whatever color the drink had been had decayed into a very upsetting yellowy grey.

"**_Don_ **Pérignon? Must be a knock-off."

"Whatever suits you," muttered Ash, and took a swig from his bottle.

Cypher gaped at him. "Easy on the liquor, Ace. We're on duty."

"How can you drink that?" asked Mouse.

"Call it a lack of funds. Bad alcohol desensitizes you to nausea. Kind of how blood desensitizes you to killing, hm?"

"You don't know half of it. Don't kill my appetite," Cypher said, testily.

He sat restlessly. First he fiddled with his pockets for a moment, taking out a leather wallet and flipping through the cards. Cypher picked out a few choice ones and studied them, then put one in his jacket pocket and his wallet in his pants. Then he rearranged it, putting his wallet in his jacket and his card in pants. He stared out the window for a while, and felt his pants pocket for his wallet. Upon finding none he checked his jacket, looked through the wallet, and couldn't find it, and looked animatedly around the bar for it before finding it in his pants.

"That's it!" he shouted. "I've fucking bored of waiting for them. Time for a lunch break."

"Oh, no," snickered Mouse.

Cypher leapt out of the barstool to his feet.

"This is something Morpheus owes _me_, okay? Don't even start," he snapped, taking out his cell phone.

"Operator," answered Tank, a whole world away.

"I'm doing a scout run to the place across the street. Going to… case the joint from all available angles, you know? Traffic low. You and base are on speed dial."

Tank sighed, feeling a fervid argument looming.

"Fine. Twenty minutes and you're out, or whenever they start coming back. Quit calling this number, and have a happy meal."

Cypher switched off the phone and pulled out a pair of electronic goggles from his jacket.

"Keep the place clean," he instructed Mouse, "and have fun."

"Go fill your emptiness before Morpheus comes in and busts your balls," the kid replied, putting them on.

Cypher laughed. "I can take him."

He got up and hurried to the entrance, then stopped at the door and turned.

"You want to get some grub, private eye?" he asked Ash.

The detective shrugged and poured the decanter's sickening contents into a sink. He then stood.

"Sure."

-----

Trinity shot the suited man, who jumped to the ground and rolled before realizing that he was dead. Morpheus walked up to his body and placed another bullet between the black lenses.

"A rather mediocre sort of agent…?" he wondered as he unbuttoned the jacket.

Inside was an I.D. badge that proclaimed the man was a member of one City Security Board, Eastern Department, UNRED-sponsored.

"Another alphabet soup faction on the urban battlefields."

"_The_ Security Board? Sounds big," commented Trinity.

They entered through the open door and continued, passing offices and boardrooms, typical administrator stuff. Whoever they could find they would pistol-whip, though they knew there was a chance of security possession of the incapacitated. There was far less resistance then, though the security system had a few tricks of its own, already anticipated- wall-mounted machine guns would shoot out wherever they went, and some of the tiles in a kitchen they passed concealed trapdoors that inexplicably opened into an abyss. The human resources were still lacking, as the beige-uniformed rent-a-cops were far less than real police.

Blazing a bullet-ridden path through the building, they stopped at in a hall where an elevator laid at the other end. In their way were three guards, dressed from head to toe in riot gear.

The freedom fighters shot them. Dozens of bullets entered their body armor, but they didn't even flinch. The three pulled out batons, and charged.

Morpheus took two large steps towards them and one small one to their side. The one on the very right missed him, and the martial arts master masterfully struck the guard with a blow the back of the neck, tripped him across and outstretched foot, and then punched the back of his head, rattling his skull against the helmet. The over-armored turtle was out cold; he didn't even struggle to get up.

Trinity dropped her two Uzis and jumped straight up as the two men gathered around her. She pirouetted, kicked both men in the head with both legs, and landed spinning. They fell without a single blow, their hands still gripping the batons and their arms still recoiled to strike.

Morpheus picked up the helmet of his downed opponent.

"Super-bulletproof augmentation doesn't work for everything," Tank noted, reading the code.

The duo walked to the elevator. It wouldn't open.

Trinity pulled out a PDA from a nonexistent pocket and connected a wire into a USB port on the elevator control panel. Within seconds, the floor lights turned from red back into white, and the door opened with a ding.

Onto the next level.

-----

The restaurant was directly across the street from Joe's Place, yet it was astoundingly richer. It was nothing like the five-star eateries downtown, yet it maintained a completely sumptuous appearance in the rough 'hood. On the other hand, it was also completely ordinary, albeit noir-flavored, with its displays of bright lights, sparkling glassware, impeccable service, and a bored-looking pair of young metrosexual musicians playing classical music on a violin and a flute in the corner.

"You ever eaten here before, P.I.?" asked Cypher.

Ash shook his head as he sat down. "Can't say I have."

An aforementioned servant with an insufferable arrogance declared his temporary vassalage for the meal.

"We'll take your best bottle of, uh, Dom Pérignon. Give us two steaks, medium rare. Cut it from your finest cow."

The waiter nodded both submissively and passive-aggressively at the same time and left for the kitchens.

"Snooty bastard. But the steaks here are to die for. Makes Outback's taste like an outhouse," Cypher said.

Ash nodded, scanning the room once again while lighting up a Pascal's Wagers. The restaurant was much more modern looking than the other nearby businesses, but that was the quirk which was called Outer Heaven. If Diamond Kids ever got hungry between touring the neorealist art galleries and dodging bullets, this was the place to go. A few were dining now, oblivious to the rundown conditions outside, conversing lazily on Poiret and Picasso. A few others seemed to be from the original O.H. At one long table sat six men in pinstriped suits in heated discussion. Minor crime lords and their stooges, no doubt. He suddenly panicked. This was his first time home, and he had no idea of what to expect after being taught of the truth. Nervously, Ash took a drag.

"Tell me something, Cypher."

"What?"

"How many people are out to get us?"

"Huh? Oh, the _resistance_. Just about all of the major authorities, the government, hacker rings, people trying to find and join us, family members of people we freed, family of people we've accidentally killed, uh, bounty hunters, organized crime-"

"Two tables behind you, to the right. No, I mean my right. No, your right- right, them. I've got the exit route. Let's leave before the waiter comes back."

Cypher blinked, staring at the alarmed detective. Then he drew his head back and laughed, hitting the table hard.

"Jee-_sus_! You're jumpy. Listen, _private eye_, we're in the underworld right now. We're as badass as much as any other Mafia punk, and we've got bigger guns. Why'd you think you were trained, anyway? Both of us combined and kick the crap out of the entire room unarmed, including those mooks behind me. Besides, their kind don't settle things by shooting in public, especially when it's in a place they own."

"What about the agents?"

"If they really wanted us today, we'd be dead by now. The system can't look into every single person's eyes at once, hell, they can't even send their soldiers around without taking over a Coppertop's shell. If you ever see one of those suited bastards, run your ass off, but don't worry- they can't find you all of the time."

"Then who do we watch out for?" Ash asked, not placated.

"That's easy. Cops."

As if on cue, two policemen walked in. They headed directly for Ash and Cypher. The detective leaned against the table to hide that he was reaching for his revolver, but Cypher pulled out his wallet and kicked him under the table.

"Hello, officers," he greeted calmly.

"Sir, this is a no-smoking restaurant," said a cop, who promptly snatched away Ash's cigarette and crushed it on the spotless carpeting.

"You are wanted for breaking and entering, trespassing, assault and battery, extortion, grand larceny, embezzling, and something around thirty computer crimes," said the other to Cypher.

"Wow… that's a pretty hefty list of accusations. It must be hard memorizing that for every criminal that's out here, ha ha," Cypher laughed. "You have any idea which one I am?"

"You are Brian McGuillings, also known as Toggle."

Cypher shook his head and grinned.

The policeman reached into his jacket, causing Ash's heart the skip a beat. The officer pulled out an open notebook.

_Well, I guess he really doesn't have it memorized._

"You are Donovan Patrick Henry, also known as Calhoun."

"That's very flattering, but no."

"((You're Not Cleared For This)), also known as Church?"

"Don't know him."

"Robin Fairfields, also known as Sidewinder."

Cypher chortled loudly. Ash could see the _mafiya_ men in the background cursing in East European. Were they upset that their meeting had been compromised or the police had not thought them important enough to harass?

"Do I look like a girl?" Cypher asked rhetorically, and pulled out a stack of cash. "Tell you what, you've given me enough of the protocol shit, and I'll just get to the part with the cash transaction shit. Got that, copper?"

The other cop, who had been silent so far, spoke. "You are suspected of lying to federal agents while under oath."

Cypher pulled one bill in particular away from its fellows. On it was a picture of his namesake, the limited edition fifty-thousand dollar bill.

"Which one of us do you want?"

"An old lady claims that a person fitting your description snatched her purse at the park, but as she was near-sighted but had her glasses were in the purse in question, we only want you for questioning."

Cypher sighed and took out a credit card.

The first cop took out a credit card scanner from his pocket.

"A homeless man under the influence claimed that you filched a nickel from his mug and then proceeded to jaywalk all over the streets. When police arrived, you weren't even in town that day," the cop was smiling.

They typed in their account numbers and PINs, and swiped the card. After receiving their satisfactory gratuities, they nodded.

"Sir, thank you very much for cooperating with police authority."

"Just doing my duty as an upstanding citizen."

"One last question: where did the money come from?"

"Ethercash. Bypass several networks and databases, and the currency basically creates itself."

"Ah," the cop said to his partner, "no wonder there's a recession going on."

"Well, chief, I think we should count our small blessings that there's still a demand for crime-fighting guys to clean up the streets."

They were laughing as they departed. After the coast was clear, the waiter returned with their order, and also some side dishes extra. Cypher nodded thanks and began wolfing down his meat immediately.

Ash, who had been at the edge of his seat for the entire conversation, declined.

"I think I've lost my appetite."

-----

The system is indeed incapable of constant surveillance of every single entity interfacing in the Matrix, and the reasons are many.

One of which is the fact that the Machines have long learned from the humans that one should not repeat the failures of history. That is, one should repeat the successes.

Considering that humanity has been under their control for generations, the plan has worked very well.

Yottabytes of information are filtered through the most sophisticated processors every single day, blind contraptions that record every single gust of wind, every stirring of an insect, every word ever spoken.

If any single program tried to access even one-septillionth of that information, it would die immediately as a whelk's chance in a supernova.

The superhyperultraquantumcoumputers built for the task analyze the data for trends and patterns, sorting out the relevant. After several more levels of sifting, it is suitable for comprehension for a typical program.

The intricacies of this system are many, but the point is that a lot of the processing power and memory is devoted to keeping a record of every single moment of the Matrix. Machine philosophers have often wondered if every single past instant is therefore another Matrix of its own, and whether if that Matrix's course of history would branch off or remain identical to the current one, thus proving or disproving the Butterfly Effect.

Such philosophers are often booted from the Machine World for questioning the Matrix/Real World duality and thus complicating the plotline by a factor of infinite, and are exiled to the Matrix, where they often die from boredom or wander about the world as specters, as their purpose requires them to have no physical shells.

The Pundit, who, like most higher programs, had a shell, and was disproving the Butterfly Effect at the very moment as Ash said "I think I've lost my appetite."

(Obviously he couldn't hear it, as he was in the Machine World and not in the Matrix.)

The bookroom looked like any typical depository. There were googleplexes of them, though he had no need to traverse through billions in order to find what he wanted. As a program, he was inserted into the section, though for formality all of the code was simulated so that an average human could have seen him.

He opened the right filing cabinet. Agent Red popped out and stood in front of him.

This was the archived form of Agent Red exactly as he had witnessed Ash forced out of the Matrix and disconnected.

"What were the most anomalous aspects?" the Pundit asked.

The archived copy flickered before replying. "I'm sorry. My responses are limited. You have to ask the right question."

The Pundit would have rolled his eyes had he been human. Instead he looked over the possible queries and asked them, one by one. The negotiations had been a failure. Though the agent was obligated to answer his questions earlier, anyway, the Pundit declined asking. This replica was as good as the real thing- less bellicose, too.

Thirty seconds after the exchange the program closed the cabinet. Five billion possible questions, covering each possible aspect that the agent had observed while in the train. Nothing of use. The Pundit was starting to question not what the answer he had been directed to find, but rather what the question was.

A courier interrupted his introspective free-thought stream. The Hermes-like mailman walked into the room and instantly disappeared in a beam a light. He had brought a message that was marked with an opening summary of:

**TRACE PROGRAM ACTIVATED AND INITIATED**

The Pundit read the message, deleted it, and overwrote its memory space. It collapsed in lines of burning code.

-----

The elevator opened on the fourth floor. Seven guards dressed in full body armor greeted them. Two quickly ran into the elevator car and were taken hostage, their bodies serving as full-sized shields. Trinity and Morpheus dove into the room, rolling on the floor and shooting every which way. They continued past hallways and offices, massacring more guards, most of who were clad only in their uniforms with no protective gear. At periodic intervals, gatling guns popped out of walls and began shooting. They shot them.

-----

Meanwhile, Ash and Cypher dined and wined. Or at least they tried.

The detective's stomach quivered. He felt the same weakness he had known back in the train car, moments before he took the pill.

"Listen, I'm really not hungry," he insisted, pushing away the sirloin.

"Eat some meat. C'mon, I'm paying for it," laughed Cypher, pushing it back.

"It's all right," Ash returned it.

"It's good stuff. Grade-A cow flesh. You'll never get another taste of it back in the 'real world'," back it came.

"No thanks," he shoved it back forcefully, rocking the champagne.

"Okay, okay, relax. Don't spill my drink."

"Sorry. I'm feeling kind of sick."

"All right, I hear ya. More for me, anyway. How about a drink, then?"

Ash looked at the decanter and felt worse.

"You getting a flashback from the stuff you found in the wine cellar? Here," he said, taking a glass from a tray a nearby waiter carried, "have some water."

Ash gulped it down. It fizzled like seltzer, and was lightly sweet. His nausea disappeared.

-----

The automatic door slid open. A lone, elderly scientist decked out in lab coat stood by a console, trembling.

Trinity walked up to him and put her gun to his head. The man cringed, but did not scream.

"Doctor Bodleian M.Sc, my regards," addressed Morpheus.

"Wh… what do you want?" trembled the doc.

"This facility was under City administration for the development of experimental computer programming techniques, was it not?"

"That information is not for me to divul-!" he gasped, feeling steel against his skull.

Trinity cocked the pistol, a movement that had no actual use in real life situations in the heat of battle other than as an intimidator towards captives or as a dramatic gesture prior to being killed through vanity and slowness.

"We are here not to receive, for we already have, but to confirm," Morpheus said. "Was this laboratory used to create weapons-related programs?"

"NO! We coded hypothetical processes, that's all! There was nothing for real-world munitions or weaponry!"

Morpheus leaned towards him, causing the scientist to shrink back towards Trinity's gun.

"What hypothetical processes?"

The scientist hit a button on the wall. A display slipped out beside him. It carried a clear plastic shell enclosing a computer chip.

"Thank you, but we already have that," said Trinity. She took a step back and jumped straight up, kicking the display. The glass shattered into smithereens as it hit the ceiling. The doctor waved his arms around like a startled chicken, flapping and squawking, running away in circles. When he opened his eyes, he had moved nary two meters away from the two gunmen.

-----

"What was that about?" Ash asked.

"Wha?"

"The good cop, bribed cop interchange."

Cypher shrugged. "They didn't have anything on us, not really. Just a general description. Us renegades don't really hang out here much."

"They really had no idea about who you were? Wait- it's the clothes, right? The leather and the sunglasses."

"You're the detective. You see, there's a reason why we all wear freaky, cramping clothes and go to raver clubs wearing these at three o'fucking clock in the morning. You ever see a hacker who looked like us, for crying out loud?"

"Yeah. Kids."

"Right. Kids. Poseurs and wannabes and what do they call it? Gimmicks? Sounds like it. There's no cop this side of downtown that knows what _real_ cyber-crims really act like."

-----

"We already have all of the computer files. They are useless. The City always has something else in hardcopy."

Doctor Bodleian gulped. "You have our LAN-only files?"

Trinity pulled out her PDA. "We cracked the firewall the first five minutes we got here."

"All of our printed material is on the bookcases around you. Or obliterated already."

"Not so. This facility contained a safe in its schematics, and a secondary safe behind it that was not in the schematics."

The doctor looked defeated. "Then you already know about the…"

"Real information being kept in plain sight? Yes. I am sure that not one single personnel ever lives a day without seeing you, director."

The wizened old man slumped. "Please don't kill me."

"We have no desire to."

"Then how do you expect to retrieve the papers?"

"We have our ways. But tell me, what were you studying?"

"I've never even read the lab findings! I can't tell you anything important!"

"What were you searching for?"

"I don't know what's written in the report!"

"Then tell us why you worked here."

"I don't know! Stop!" shrieked the old man.

Trinity took out a metal cube the size of a toy block and shoved it down his throat.

-----

"So," continued Cypher, his mouth stuffed with beef. "I heard about you. Trinity rescued you from a choo-choo, right?"

"I found her in a train on the eastbound Trans-Sibir line. She gave me the pill there."

"Why were you there? Trying to find her?"

"Yes and no. She was trying to find me at the same time."

Cypher chuckled. "That woman has never been a straight-shooter."

"Preaching to the converted. She can really sneak around."

"She's been like that ever since she brought me out of this place."

"Nine years ago?"

"You pay attention."

"I'm paid to."

"I keep on forgetting that you're a private dick, Tracy."

"That's not a term I would prefer."

"Private detective, typical film noir. You were also down on your luck, am I right?"

"I've had successes. I caught Johannes Käse."

"I saw that. It was all over the news. Vast, hidden connections, they said. Suggestions of hidden manipulation by sinister big-name mob groups. You discovered him, some schmuck who used to be a thug."

"The secret to good detective work is luck."

"It takes luck to find cheating wives?"

"That's police work, same as dusting for fingerprints and forming motives. The real way

to succeed is to find the inconsistencies in the pattern that no one else does. That takes some random insight and chance. That takes… luck."

"You really into Lady Luck?"

"Not really. I don't believe in fate."

"But you just said…"

"I'd like to think that there are a few things in life that are out to protect me."

"So do I, but I'd like to be home up to my ears in naked women and eating steaks between bouts, if you know what I mean."

Ash smiled sardonically. "The Real World not what you thought it was?"

"You know it, buddy. Morpheus really sold me with his tale. How did Trinity do it?"

-----

GRZHNGRHNZHNGRFFUGRNZZBK

Doctor Bodleian's body shook as the metal pipe ran into his organs. He convulsed and contorted, his limbs flying around, struggling in vain. Trinity pressed down on the cube that was in his mouth, wrestling with tiny switches with her thumbs. The machine hummed and clicked almost routinely. Then it stopped, and the pipe slid back into the cube.

"Seventeen seconds," said Morpheus. "You are growing more adept at using the probe."

"I suppose I should be proud."

"You supposed correctly."

He took the probe and opened the claw that poked through one side of the cube. A plastic tube holding a wad of papers was in it.

The doctor remained prone on the ground. Morpheus assured her that he was still alive.

"Shock," he diagnosed. "He's been implanted by a device that stimulates his nociceptors when he talks about the forbidden subject."

"So that's why he kept his air passages open…"

"Everything has a reason, Trinity."

Morpheus opened the tube and discarded it. Lactic acid stained the carpet. He skimmed a few pages, and nodded. It didn't look like gibberish. Even if it was false information, it had its uses.

Trinity pocketed several datadisks, and walked to the elevator. She pushed a button.

And turned. It was a blur, but after her adrenaline had kicked up she saw all clearly.

The scientist struggled to his feet. Below his waist, his pants were black. His tie changed, his skin less wrinkled, his face- an earphone! Morpheus pushed him out of the window before she saw sunglasses.

On the pavement below, a very angry Agent Smith stared at four stories above.

-----

"I was in a rush, and she offered me a deal," said Ash.

"Freedom and liberty?"

"Truth and knowledge."

"You sound like a Gnostic. Keep on talking about insights and things that you know that no one else does, dickie."

"I'm not."

"Huh."

He took a wine goblet and turned it in his hands, examining the crystal. "I always thought those heretics were dead, ancient history. But now I realize…"

Cypher swallowed a piece of steak. "What?"

"The more things change, the more they stay the same."

"You think we're Gnostics?"

"I didn't say that. But how do you know of them?"

"Me? I'm a real book-learning, literate kind of guy, for sure."

"You read about early proto-Christian sects that died out before there was even a need for Apostolic Succession?"

"No. Morpheus told us about them. That they were also lost seers of light and enlightenment and all that crap. He did say we were following in their footsteps."

"Hm."

"I think a lot of what he says is just… Morpheus. But he is right about one thing."

"And what's that?"

"There really is a lot of hidden knowledge in this world."

"You don't need to know the Apocrypha to know _that_."

"Shut up. This is the time period when all that ancient stuff makes a cultural comeback, anyway."

"What?"

"Oh, nothing."

-----

Five squad cars surrounded the building. Police officers were running around, and a fire truck and ambulance had arrived on the scene. Trinity nodded to Morpheus.

"What must fall down must first go up," he quipped as he climbed out onto a windowsill.

-----

"On the train… you felt the… stirring, right?" asked Cypher.

"The escape?"

"No, that's different. A whole different kind of pain. No, before that. Did a program try to break into your I/O signal?"

"I don't know. You mean when an agent takes over your body?"

"Right. The way it kind of oozes into your body, the paralysis? It feels like everything's being blurred out, and someone else is in control. Literally the truth. Crazy haze."

"Yeah, I think I did." Ash remembered the unpleasantness before he took the pill.

"They don't have to stimulate the nervous system too fully, those damn machines. Their electrical synapses just criss-cross into yours, so part of you still feels the world. Or maybe the fake world, I should say."

"I remember it more clearly now. I felt like blanking out for a second."

"That's the way they slip into your body, man. That's the way they take snatch you," Cypher drained his cup.

Ash looked at him. He seemed rather intense as he gazed into the bottle.

"Have you ever been taken over by an agent?"

"Oh… no. I've heard about it, though."

Ash took the bottle, poured a cup, and drank.

-----

The duo jumped across the gap from the lab to a nearby apartment. Wayward bullets struck the air behind them before Smith ordered the men to stop. The two scampered up the dilapidated fire escape and onto the roof, running as fast as they could. There were five more cars on the other side of the building, and they had not been told by anyone not to fire. Bullets flew past them.

As they reached the end of the building they heard the creak of rusted metal. The agent was coming.

"Never stand your ground," Morpheus reminded her. There was no need to.

-----

Cypher finally finished his steaks, wiped his mouth and sat back.

"Enjoying yourself?"

"You can't even believe. How long have you been on the ship? Two weeks?"

"Ten days."

"Lucky bastard. I had to wait three months to come back here. False world, my ass!"

"I guess they need me to be a part of this, since the 'One' is coming back and-"

"Don't get me started on that."

"Sorry."

"You don't understand it. Give a guy a day on real-world food and he'll be disgusted. Give him a week on it and he'll start starving himself. Give him two weeks and he'll be more willing to cooperate, maybe he'll eat it all from time to time. Give him a month and he's finished, he gives in and is used to it. Give him six months and he remembers **_real food_**. He'll be dreaming it. He'll be craving it. He'll fantasize about it. That's when withdrawal hits home, because you never get used to eating yeast." Cypher stopped and stared at his empty plate.

"Morpheus doesn't give you many furloughs, does he?"

He looked at his knife. It laid in a puddle of reddish oil.

"I'd give anything for more steak."

-----

Three more gaps, two more buildings. The agent was swift.

Trinity, the more nimble of the two, ran swiftly while firing behind. Utterly useless, as the agent was both too agile and too fast to actually be hit, though it kept him preoccupied for a bit.

The police were having coordination problems downstairs, still arguing about whether the chase constituted a local or federal business. It was simply a ploy to get the fed to take care of the two perps, since there was no one really representing the agents present. No need to lose either men or prestige, the lieutenant reasoned.

He stared as the suited G-man leap across buildings at less than a bound.

"Sir, one of their official's here," informed a young sergeant.

"Finally, someone to give us some damned answers," he answered.

To his disgust, it was none other than one of the City Science eggheads, decked out in a typical lab coat.

"Officer, we maintain the right to our own property. It is under sovereign authority."

The Lt. snorted. "It takes a lot of gall for you to say that. There is no way in hell this sort of mess is going to be under your 'sovereign authority' after this sort of disturbance has just blown the street up in half. There's been calls about gunfire for the last forty minutes, so don't try to infringe on a police investigation, _professor_."

"On the contrary. We are happy to oblige. In fact, we'll be happy enough to volunteer you experimental weaponry that can assist you in your search."

"Experimental, huh? I've got no time for superhero bullshit."

"You are obligated to, as under CS Regulations Chapter Eleven, 'Of Duties to the Community', the laboratories and law enforcement bodies are in coexistence and cooperation. Regardless, I believe you will find our technology to be satisfactory."

"Get a move on it, then."

-----

"Still not eating?"

"No."

"You ever wonder why you signed up for this?"

"Not yet."

"Ten days. Still waiting to find the end of the yellow brick road."

"It'd be gray here."

"Ha."

-----

They slid down a pipe, landing three stories down in a dumpster. They quickly jumped into the car. Apoc had already jumped the ignition, and Switch had already been staring at the space above her for the entire waiting period. As they drove off, the agent landed on the car roof with a thump.

Apoc instinctively swerved to the left, brushing the narrow alley's wall. Not much of an effect. He drove out into traffic at full speed and braked. The agent held on.

The three passengers vainly shot through the roof, ruining the classic car. The agent still held, dodging. He began to pull out a humongous Desert Eagle out of his jacket, his tie fluttering in the wind. The modified car almost shot back to breakneck speed.

Police were behind. The gun was ready. Apoc's grip on the wheel was steady.

By sheer chance the Continental hit a ditch, throwing Smith off balance with a jolt. He frowned as he held on to the dashboard, staring at the driver and Morpheus.

The man shot. The program dodged.

The car bumped into the 18-wheeler in front. Program fell, but clutched car.

Apoc changed lanes and sped off. The agent was left on the ground, still holding on to the front bumper. The headlights of the Continental were smashed, and the front of the hood was ruined, but the car still roared.

Programmed Durability.

-----

Cypher's cell shook. He answered.

"Get back, now. Boss 1 and Boss 2 are coming back. Mouse out."

He wiped his mouth with the cloth again and took one were sip of the liquor. The check was already at the table. Cypher signed a name and left his card on the bill.

He stood. "Let's go."

-----

Tank had spotted Morpheus and Co. returning. Too busy to flee from the agent to dial a simple number, he thought. The green line remained steady within the sea.

The activity was erratic, but he was ready for it. Not much for the Machines to do but to attempt to cover up the physical impossibilities arising from the shootout. Sometimes glitches occurred in peak processing hours- pebbles hanging in mid air and glass flowing like water and all that. It looked standard.

It lied.

-----

"I'm h_ooooooooo_me," exaggerated Cypher, sauntering into the bar. Ash followed, wary.

Mouse looked up from his laptop. "Don't ever do that again."

"There's no agents around. And don't try to give me orders."

"There will be. The fucker's on the ground on Robinson and Vane, but he's still running."

"Running?" asked Ash.

"He could've taken any car, but he's choosing to chase on foot. That means he's plotting something."

"You're as jumpy as the detective here. They're not the creative sort. And there was never an agent that could outrun a car."

"Like I told you, he might-"

He was cut short as the Continental screeched to a halt in front of the bar. Apoc got out of the driver's side, and quickly ran on the road, to open Morpheus's door. The other two got out.

They ran for the door. Morpheus's leather duster flew up in its trademark cape.

Ash arched an eyebrow and looked over the car one more time.

He spoke to the others, who were also looking out the window. "You don't need to be me to know that the car has a driver's side _on the left_."

Ash pulled out his .38 Saturday night special and fired away. Mouse's jaw dropped and realized the same thing. He pulled out an appropriately archaic submachine gun, followed by Cypher with a light .30 M249.

Ash's first shot hit Apoc. The hacker's face shattered as the shot hit him. As he tottered backwards, the other could clearly see a plastic shield appear over his head, and his leather turned into a flak jacket. He became thinner and shorter too, his body-suited form falling on the grass.

Cypher and Mouse both hit Switch. A bullet through the jugular would unleash an instant spray, but all that appeared was a hole, followed by the armor that the hole was in, and then an entirely different body hitting the ground. "Morpheus" tried to roll to the side, but Cypher peppered him with shots, almost gleefully.

"Trinity" was the hard one. She somehow managed to take a huge jump and propelled into the air man-of-steel style, arms straight forward and firing Uzis as she dove into the window. The three immediately ducked down, and as she broke through the glass, still in the same position, Ash fired into the air three perfect shots.

The body hit the floor and silver fluid gushed aside blood. Cypher ran to the body and turned it over. A helmeted, lifeless face stared behind a clear shield. The shooter was dressed in the same nylon black body-suit as the others.

Cypher poked at it with a gun and said, "Bulletproof."

Tank called Mouse. "This is getting too weird. I'm dialing the exit. Get back when Morpheus returns. ETA: 55 seconds."

"_Why the hell didn't you warn us of that?!?"_ the kid screamed into the phone.

"The whole area's experiencing a clusterfuck. There's no damn way to see anything."

Mouse paused, breathing in. "You mean you didn't see that?"

"I'm not even sure if I know what I saw. I can clearly see everyone else coming back."

He threw the cell phone out of the window. Silence beats talk.

Ash studied the dead figure. There were no identification badges on it, no sort of insignia at all. It looked like any typical dead covert super-stealth spy one could think of, albeit it wore the helmet instead of a black mask and night vision goggles. There were three holes on the torso where the bullets entered, and doubtless matching bullets were lying on the floor behind him. So, nothing out of the ordinary. Except-

He searched through his own jacket's limitless pockets, hoping that it was still here. Ah! Right next to the fingerprinting kit and the online-ordered voyeuristic 20x digital camera. He pulled the tweezers and test tube and scooped the stuff in.

Quicksilver slick. Fluidic as hell. The unknown, creeping liquid touched the body nowhere except where it contacted the ground, like some sort of bizarre murder scene chalk outline.

Another car slammed into the alleyway beside the bar.

Cypher went to the door and opened it a crack, gun in hand.

"Lose the melodrama, Cy. It's them. They were _supposed_ to park there, anyway."

The real four entered. Cypher gave them a brief record of everything that happened after he had returned from the restaurant. Seeing as that was the lion's share of events, Morpheus did not press him for a more comprehensive answer. They were to get a closer look of the bodies, but Tank called another cell.

"Six squad cars coming your way. I think they called an APB. _Three_ agents." Morpheus nodded to Switch, who quickly scattered the materials.

They made their exit. By the time the authorities arrived, Joe's Place was burning.

Endnote: _Ouch_. I'm never, ever going to estimate when chapters are finished. I hope that this installment has plenty of both mindless action and mindcrunching dialogue for everybody. Please, please forgive the tardiness. Thank you, everybody who is reading this. Truly.

Alternate chapter title: Heaven Ain't Close in a Place Like This


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